


pyramid bound

by veterization



Category: Nancy Drew (Video Games)
Genre: Cave-In, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 23:41:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14964458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veterization/pseuds/veterization
Summary: A cave-in forces Nancy, Dylan, and all the others at the dig to be stuck inside the pyramid together.





	pyramid bound

**Author's Note:**

> okay. so what happened [was basically this](http://oi67.tinypic.com/6rq2jr.jpg), five minutes after playing tmb for the seven billionth time. and then i decided "this could be a WHOLE lot angstier" and here we are. this is very much the equivalent of a "snowed in" fic except in the heat, in egypt, in a pyramid.
> 
> this story essentially kicks off about halfway through the game and carries on from there, so certain plot points/conversations that happen in the game have already happened, while some have not yet. it's pretty similar to my hugh/nancy story in that i just wanted to have some fun writing dylan's character and OF COURSE sneaked some nancy/dylan in there because y'know what? i legitimately love them.
> 
> also, just because i feel like this is an important detail: i had this file saved in my google docs under "sandstorm" while i worked on a name, and every time i opened it up, i instantly had the darude song just pumping through my brain. curse/blessing???

Dylan is lazily minding his own business in his chair in the sand when the sandstorm hits without any prior notice or save-the-date card; it just sweeps over the desert like a grumbling monster rolling through the horizon.

Dylan sees it coming for him like a giant, dusty avalanche. Just as his umbrella starts flapping in warning, the weight of the situation smacks him in the face.

“Shit,” he mutters.

He doesn’t have time to grab anything, just bolts for cover. The walls of the tents are flapping like mad in these winds, so Dylan makes the (hopefully) smart decision and runs for the pyramid instead, clearance to be there or not.

It turns out to be a popular destination. He runs smack into Nancy on his way down the steps and nearly sends them both toppling, righting himself on the wall before he tumbles down headfirst. By the time visibility returns, he can make out that the whole gang’s made it safely, even if they look a bit shaken. Not that Dylan can blame anyone. A tornado of sand whipping you in the face can do that to you.

The tension is pretty thick as they all stand there, uncertain of the next move. He’s been in Egypt for a while now, and he’s experienced his fair share of sandstorms and knows not to overreact, although they do seem to be a bit heavier out here in the desert. Still, they don’t last forever. Just have to sit them out.

He says as much to his fellow captives, who look less than thrilled at his blasé attitude.

“All right,” he says. “Should we all sing campfire songs then? Lift up morale a bit?”

“Stop talking,” Abdullah demands. “The storm will clear up in a bit.”

Dylan peers up the stairs to the exit from the safest distance he can manage. Doesn’t look too pretty out there. He can only hope his lawn chair is still there when the winds calm down. He was hoping to get that firepit going and have a nice lay down under the stars later, but that looks a little unlikely by now.

The sun starts going down after an hour or so, dusk settling between the sheets of sand Dylan tries to squint through when he approaches the stairs enough to get a peek. No, thank you. Somehow, though, the most unnerving part might just be how _quiet_ everyone is down here while they wait for the weather to calm. A good game of twenty questions could probably loosen everybody up—poor Lily looks close to a panic attack.

Relax, he desperately wants to tell her. The panicking is excessive. This is what rubbish like _curses_ do to someone who’s already faint of heart.

“Might as well get some sleep,” Jamila says when the sandstorm doesn’t seem to show any sign of slowing down, the wind whipping at the pyramid like mighty slaps from a giant. Every now and then sand will fly into the room in a whirl and Dylan will nearly get it in his eye—now that’d be some bad luck, right on time—and he’ll be left to wonder why ancient Egyptians didn’t believe in doors.

“But—all our things. They’re still in the tent,” Lily protests. Just looking at her, Dylan can guess that she’s the kind of person who flosses every night, no exceptions. This must be killing her.

“Just how stupid are you?” spits Abdullah. Charming as always. “No one leaves this pyramid. If they do, they’ll learn quickly just how stupid they are. A real archaeologist has endured worse.”

He goes off on a small tirade— _ten years ago, four of us slept on stones for three whole nights, and you didn’t hear us complain_ —but Dylan mostly tunes him out. He opts instead to help Jamila pull the tarps down from some of the scaffolding to use as makeshift mattresses.

“—what are you doing?!”

Dylan looks over his shoulder. He really thought Abdullah’s story would go on way longer. “Oh.” He gestures to the tarp. “Just Macgyvering it, as you do.”

“This is my site, and you are ruining it!”

“It’s not your site!”

“It should be!”

Boy, does the man like to yell. And grumble. Typically both, simultaneously, and whenever possible. If Dylan could handpick who to eat first in this group—if it came to such dire straits—he knows who he’d go for. He drags one tarp aside and shakes out all the centuries-old tomb dust, then hands it to Nancy, who’s watching him amid all the aired out soot.

“I know it’s not exactly The Ritz,” he tells her. “But it is better than nothing.”

“True,” she concedes. “Just thinking about the nice, warm sheets I left up in the tent.”

“Good luck retrieving them,” Dylan says. 

That particular point seems inarguable. Leaving the pyramid now is a recipe for pink eye and injury and just making a general fool of oneself, which no one here seems to be interested in, and rightly so. Dylan would also love to be up above rewarding himself with the sandwich currently in his bag and lounging in his sun chair, but hey, he can handle a few hours down in a pyramid with a motley of assorted weirdos. It’s temporary.

\--

Turns out, it’s pretty cold in a centuries old pyramid, even under a tarp.

Dylan can hear someone’s teeth _actually_ chattering. Who even is that? He turns to his side, trying to focus on the simple yet unattainable concept of getting some sleep, but finds that the hard-as-concrete pyramid floor isn’t exactly as effective as a Serta mattress. 

He needs to get out of here. The sandstorm can’t last forever, can it? If this is the curse, or some kind of godly punishment because he’s dabbling around in the black market, it’s not as amusing as he thought it would be. If newspapers report on this alleged curse, would he even be mentioned? He’s just a tour guide passing through, after all. Probably not even room for him in the footnote.

He tries to get comfortable, tries his best to ignore the feeling of every single piece of sand grinding into his skin. Tries to pretend he’s at home in his bed where his mattress has gone seriously underappreciated. He has the feeling that sleeping will be a useless endeavor anyway. 

He’s proven right when right around the three a.m. mark, a massive crash wakes everybody up, one that sounds like a giant bowling ball has struck the pyramid. He blinks awake, unnerved, and bolts upright when he gets an eyeful of the damage.

It’s like lightning smashed into the pyramid, a great big jolt that has everyone scrambling. Dylan fumbles for his lighter and flicks it on, illuminating little, but still enough to see that the entrance has caved in, massive rocks and broken stone tumbled over the stairs.

Abdullah gets to his feet and stomps to the rubble; the very thumping of his walking seems to thunder through the ground. Lily’s whispering about the curse—for god’s sake, Dylan wants to say—and Nancy is rummaging around in her bag for her own lighter, which casts a small addition to the flame Dylan has produced. He blinks a few times, waiting for his eyes to adjust, but it’s too dark without the lamps on, leaving most of the scene to guess work. The only thing missing at this point to round out the whole snafu of a situation is Jamila wailing on about how aliens will save them any minute. Curiously, she stays silent.

Immediately, Abdullah starts trying to unhinge the massive pile of rock now blocking the exit, his movements angry and almost beast-like. Dylan would think that someone who’d survived cave-ins before would know better than to attack the source like a child with a tantrum, but he might be failing to take into account exactly how little of a morning person Abdullah is. From the looks of it, not at all.

His hissy fit lasts about two minutes before he gives up with a snarl. “The rocks are not moving!” shouts Abdullah, as if sheer volume will intimidate the stones into movement. “We are stuck, more than we ever were before.”

“Don’t panic,” Nancy says. “Things might have shifted by tomorrow. We should try and get some more sleep—”

“Pah! Sleep! If you die down here, Nancy, you will not care about how many cat naps you were able to squeeze in beforehand!”

“Enough!” Jamila cuts in. “Nancy’s right. Panicking now won’t help.”

Abdullah seems awfully offended that Jamila is calling his super helpful and not at all useful yelling _panicking_ , his face a contortion of incredulous rage. Needless to say, he’s not the type to heed an order—or a suggestion, for that matter—and ignores the idea to get some more rest completely in favor of continuing to wrestle with the stones.

He wastes no time in the self-rescue efforts. He stomps through the tomb, as if to blow off steam or put himself in a well-placed timeout—Dylan hears ancient coffins might be good for those sorts of things—but returns five minutes later with his arms full of sticks and spears and everything else that even mildly resembles an ax, and gets to work on the entrance. It wouldn’t be so annoying if it didn’t completely hinder anybody else’s desire to keep sleeping; the noise alone is already annoying, but then Abdullah turns all the lights back on—perhaps Dylan should be celebrating the fact that the generator still works—and the place is flooded in light and the loud racket of a man trying to rage his way through a wall of immovable rocks.

Dylan watches for a while. If Abdullah’s intention is to hack his way out of the cave-in, he fails miserably. Some of the rocks crumble a bit at the edges, but there’s too many, and they’re too sturdy, piled together too firmly for his efforts to really make a difference.

It’s also when a small tickle of panic starts to itch its way up Dylan’s leg.

The biggest problem with being an unsavory individual is that no one is probably going to come looking for you when you’re in a precarious situation. Dylan can say with some certainty that the men who dropped him off at the site aren’t coming back for him, and his mum doesn’t call anymore, and that means he’s officially screwed. The best he can hope is that one of these sorry people he’s stuck down in the pyramid with have built more meaningful relationships with people than him, people who will eventually come searching for them.

He turns to Nancy, whose eyes already look like there are a million cogs behind them working two hundred kilometers a minute. There are definitely important people in her life who would notice if she wouldn’t turn up again in a few weeks. Friends. A boyfriend? Dylan feels like now is probably not the right time to ask.

“Stop it,” Jamila demands once she notices that Abdullah’s rescue attempts have morphed into caveman-reminiscent aggression. “If you're not careful, you’ll cause _another_ cave-in with all that force, and then we’ll really be trapped down here.”

Abdullah huffs. “We are already trapped, darling. Perhaps you failed to notice while you were transmitting signals to your good friends, the aliens!”

Jamila’s lips thin, but she doesn’t go off on her magnum-opus of Annunaki evidence, which is both a relief and markedly strange. Lily looks like she’s close to tears. She fumbles to get her cell phone out of her pocket.

“There’s no reception down here,” Nancy tells her. “Only up above.”

“Marvelous,” Dylan mutters under his breath, just as Lily processes this information with distinctly wet eyes. “Any other exits in here?”

“If there’s another, I don’t know about it,” Nancy says.

So they’re trapped. That’s nice. Unless all of them can band together and burrow a tunnel out of this place. It’d be like the ultimate team-building exercise.

Dylan claps his hands together, determined not to fall prey to weeping and the like. “All right, what about everybody splits up and we all search the place like crazy for any sign of an emergency escape route?”

Amazingly enough, they all listen. Nothing like a potentially life-threatening situation to bring a group of people who don’t really care for each other together, Dylan thinks dryly, as everyone disperses down various hallways. He follows suit, looking first for the obvious exits—it’s also the first time he’s been allowed down here by the pyramid’s official guard dog, Abdullah, so a part of him is revelling in the freedom and also mentally compiling a tour script he could use in a place like this—and when that doesn’t work, he retraces his steps and turns on his eagle eyes for the slightest of signs of hope, like cracks in the wall or possibly hidden doors. 

No luck there either. All the dead ends are especially depressing. What even is the bloody point? Dylan stares at wall after unhelpful wall, each as mocking as the last. Lots of hieroglyphs, lots of chalky paintings, and even one particularly sassy blue cat on a wall is all he finds.

The only one who doesn’t aid in the search is Abdullah—“I know the pyramid like the back of my hand,” he says when Dylan asks, “there are no exits!”—who stays with the caved-in rocks like glaring them into submission will somehow work in freeing them. By the time the others come back to the main chamber, no one has good news to deliver, and the outlook gets slightly dimmer.

“Heads high, everybody,” Dylan says with a carefree grin when one by one, grim looks are exchanged. “It’ll work out. People don’t just fall off the face of the earth these days. Someone goes searching for them.”

It’s strange, being the voice of reason. It’s not a job he’s ever had any experience with before. He remembers what Nancy said of him after meeting him— _you seem very casual about everything_ —and still, he doesn’t think that’s a bad thing. If it’ll keep him sane in a shitshow of a situation like this, he’ll pick slightly too nonchalant over purposefully choosing to give way to the dramatics.

In comparison, Lily is a panicked mess and Jamila is very, very quiet, a stark contrast to the way Abdullah is yelling at everything in sight, still or alive. Dylan thinks the only reason he hasn’t dropped into hysterics is because he hasn’t quite processed it yet—something about the desert just makes everything feel like a fever dream.

They still have time. The crew left stacks of canned food down here along with some water bottles, so not all hope is lost yet. He points this out to a tear-streaked Lily, who doesn’t seem to care for his attempts at cheering her up, too leashed by her own anxiety.

“She’s overreacting a bit,” Dylan whispers to Nancy a short while later. “We’re not all going to die in a few hours. Someone’s going to notice we’re all here eventually.”

“Maybe,” Nancy hedges. Then she pulls a piece of paper from her pocket, carefully folded, and hands it to him. “Or maybe not.”

Dylan unfolds it. “What’s this?”

“A diary entry I found. Here, in the pyramid.” She looks grim, so grim that Dylan’s a little wary about reading it. “Turns out we’re not the first ones to wind up here.”

He skims a few lines and feels a distinctly sick churning in his gut. He’s not sure he’s ever read someone’s last words before—or as good as—and it’s more disturbing than he would’ve guessed.

_You’re in her tomb. She’ll never let you leave._

“Where’d you find this?”

Nancy points up to a doorway. One extremely out of reach.

“How’d you get up there?” Dylan asks. “Didn’t know we had a Spiderman among us.”

“I used the pillars,” Nancy explains, pointing.

“Did you really?” he asks, and she nods. “Daring.” Respect bubbles up in his chest, and it must be visible on his face as well, because she turns away, cheeks slightly pink. “What’s up there?”

Nancy shrugs. “Not much. It’s a small room.”

“Nothing else up there? Like a well-hidden door, perhaps?”

She throws him a look. “Do you think I’d miss seeing an entire door in there?”

“Well, that’s why I said _well-hidden_ , Nancy. No offense meant to what I’m sure are your superior eyesight skills.”

Regardless, Nancy seems to have taken offense. “I’ll show you,” she says, back straightening.

She proceeds to beckon him along as she climbs the scaffolding and jumps from pillar to pillar like something out of Tombraider. At first Dylan can hardly believe his eyes; then he hustles to catch up. When he’s up, he first has to wrap his head around what just happened.

For a split second, he has hope that this is a potential exit—until he rounds the corner and sees that this hidden nook is little more than a small, musty room covered in sand and debris. And it’s strangely moist, almost, and high enough that it’s considerably warmer than the rest of the pyramid. Dylan plucks at his shirt, already feeling a little sticky, and takes a good look around the room, particularly at the weird illustration on the wall of a woman whose arms seem to have completely popped out of their shoulder pockets. She’s bent over a series of other drawings, none of which make any sense to Dylan.

“Looks like a code,” he says. He steps forward and runs his thumb over the crumbling wall, feeling powderized wall slip away as he rubs at the edge of a painted bird. “No clue what it means, though.”

“I thought so too,” Nancy says. “I think it means there’s more to this pyramid than meets the eye. More obstacles I haven’t found yet.”

“Obstacles?”

“Well, riddles and puzzles. Things standing in the way of Nefertari.”

He nods along, partially listening. God, does he hope this is Nefertari’s tomb. If this is just some knock-off pyramid given to a butler or something, Dylan’s going to be as disappointed as he is miffed. _The next it spot_ , the guys had been raving. Everyone loves a good love story. Especially tourists.

“So you really think this is all Ramses the…” Quick breath. Quick history pop quiz. “...uh, _second’s_ doing? That he was trying to protect her from selfish, grabby explorers like us?”

“I don’t think that’s what we are. At least I know I’m not.” Nancy purses her lips, briefly displeased.

“Not quite an answer to my question,” Dylan says, artfully ignoring the jab he’s sure was just now meant for him.

After a silence, she responds. “Maybe. If their love was as great as everyone says…”

He has to smile at that. “Aw, Nancy. Are you a romantic, by any chance?”

“More of a realist,” Nancy says. She rolls her shoulders. She definitely seems a little irritated, but Dylan’s not sure at what. “I don’t really have all that much time for romance.”

“Aah,” Dylan says, and leaves it at that. Perhaps trouble in paradise for Nancy, for all he knows. There is, at least, one thing he knows for sure: there’s always time for romance _if_ you bother to make it. And if you don’t bother, there’s probably a reason.

He looks back at the drawings on the wall. If it is a secret code leading to Nefertari, then he doesn’t have much interest in doing the legwork necessary to solve it. He’ll let someone else put in the effort. It’s not so much he doesn’t care—but, well, the thing he cares most about is the publicity and the fact that he’ll be the first tour guide who has his feelers out here.

That, and the matter of working his way into Abdullah’s supposed smuggling ring. He ought to get to work on that soon.

Beneath him, the collected sand and dust crunches underfoot. “You found that piece of paper here?” he asks.

She points to the piles of sand. “Right here. I think it’s a journal entry. There might be more in here.”

“Right.” If they’re half as cheery as the first one, he can only imagine what the rest look like. He unfolds it and reads over it again, specifically that ominous last bit. “Okay. If whoever wrote this was stuck here that long, we might be in for the same house party.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, we probably should get comfortable while we wait for rescue. See what our food and water situation is.”

She nods. He brushes the dirt off his palms and cocks his head to the doorway.

“All right. Now how do we get down from this god awful height?”

\--

After climbing their way back down—Dylan sporting the scrapes and bruises to show for it—they try to figure out the severity of their predicament. He and Nancy split up and round up any and all food in the pyramid, which unfortunately doesn’t extend past the few boxes left behind by the crew. There’s enough water bottles to last everyone a bit if they don’t guzzle it like he’s wanted to ever since the he found out they had to ration their supplies, but definitely not more than a few weeks.

He doesn’t know how fast emergency crews could get to them. Getting rid of the rocks is one business—knowing they’re all missing is the hard part.

Let’s just focus on the present, he advises himself as he looks through the canned goods stacked together. Nothing to write home about, that’s for sure, but he’ll take beans and sliced peaches over starvation.

As far as the other accommodations go, this place definitely isn’t a five-star resort, not that Dylan’s so much as breathed the air of a five-star resort in years. The sand on the ground does something in the way of cushioning and the tarps are about the best they have as bedsheet replacements, but pillows are definitely a commodity he’s missing. The bathroom has turned into one corner Abdullah was okay with them _defiling_ because honestly, that’s just not a basic function that Dylan—or anyone else—can turn off. Showers are a no-go, along with pizza delivery, WiFi, or any other minor modern appliances. Entertainment has been whittled down to things like staring at walls and watching everyone else panic about what to do.

The panicking dies down soon enough, though. It’s exhausting, always being in hysterics—at this point, Dylan has no idea how Lily is still keeping it up. The others have dispersed, taking their notebooks and hieroglyph decoders and uninteresting work with them, presumably to bore themselves to death with all these “messages” on the pyramid walls. Dylan could go for a few board games.

They’ve barely been in this pyramid, and he’s already itching to leave.

\--

Dylan recalls, not too long ago, how desperate he had been to get into the pyramid so he could have an audience, as it were, with Abdullah. At the time, the idea of being stuck in here with him would’ve been an answered prayer, because not only is Dylan effective, but he’s extremely effective when he has space and time on his side. In this case, none at all, and all in the world, respectively.

The problem here is that Abdullah is _cranky_. He already wasn’t a rainbow-spitting Mr. Rogers before, but now that the pyramid has become a hostage situation, he’s even more of a crab. Things are really starting to go downhill.

Although technically, things probably started going downhill when that professor from Kingston was clobbered over the head. Probably important that he not overlook that.

Best to just bite the bullet with the whole tete-a-tete with Abdullah. That’s why he’s here, after all. Dylan finds him next to the collapsed scaffolding, arms folded, eyes on the wall. His palms look scraped raw, a dull red, most likely from trying to claw his way out the pyramid. At least his little spell of rage has subsided.

Dylan feels for an opener, approaching.

“So any luck with the exit?” he asks.

It wasn’t the right opener. Abdullah turns to him, mouth twisted. “You’d know if I had.”

“Ah, of course. No luck for the time being, I suppose. Might as well make the most of it.”

“Make the most of being trapped underground for an eternity?”

Dylan gestures to the tall, majestic ceilings. “Hey, there are worse places to be stuck in than this, right?”

Abdullah doesn’t respond. Maybe he thinks Dylan’s asking rhetorical questions. Maybe he has zero conversational skills. Or maybe he’s internally muttering a curse to get Dylan killed by a falling support beam. Dylan ignores the warning signs and charges full speed ahead anyway.

“So, uh.” He suddenly doesn’t know if this is really such a good idea. He rubs the back of his neck, feeling it warm up. “I heard that you’re—running an undercover gig here, if you catch my drift.”

Abdullah barely spares him a glance. “I don’t,” he says.

“Come on.” Dylan gives a weak chuckle. “You can trust me.”

A small, but still freakishly condescending puff of air escapes Abdullah’s nose. He turns and offers Dylan a grin that’s more shark-like than it is encouraging.

“And why is that?” he asks. He sounds about two seconds away from kicking Dylan in the teeth. Dylan quickly looks down; that tight, white-knuckled grip Abdullah has on his notebook is pretty telling. “What about you is trustworthy over all the others?”

“Well.” He clears his throat, wondering how far he can push this. “I know about your secret little operation, and I haven’t babbled about it to anyone.” He smiles, conspiratorial, and leans in closer. “I’d say that makes me somebody to consider trusting.”

Abdullah doesn’t crack. Not a smile, or otherwise. “What secret little operation are you talking about?”

Dylan gives him a conspiratorial nudge. “ _You know_ ,” he mutters. “I’m not a grass.   
I’m saying is that I want in.”

Abdullah regards him for one long, calculating moment. His eyes are disturbingly bird-like in the way they bore into his.

“Go back to your pretty American girl,” Abdullah finally says. The patronization oozes from every syllable. “And leave the real men—like me—in peace.”

“Ha! Always the kidder, you are,” Dylan says, but he can feel his over-the-top bravado slipping. He’s starting to think that his charm isn’t quite as foolproof as he originally thought, which is equal parts disturbing and disappointing. “Well, good chat. I’ll let you mull over that proposition for a bit.”

Abdullah doesn’t say a word, just chuckles at the wall in a way that gives Dylan the inkling—just the sliiightest hint—that he’s not being taken seriously here.

So much for that plan.

He leaves, not sure he’ll be missed in the least, and when he heads around the corner, Nancy’s there, startling. 

“Nancy,” he says, surprised.

Her expression is blank as she leans against the wall, but Dylan swears he can see an undercurrent of suspicion there. Although that might just be his own paranoia.

“Was that Abdullah you were talking to just now?”

“Uh, yes,” he says. Lying might be counterproductive at this point, given that she most likely saw him. And possibly heard him. “Why?”

“What did you want from him?”

“Oh, just a chat,” Dylan says. “Smart old lad, he is. Awful and unbelievably rude, but definitely smart.”

“Uh huh.”

“Well, I’m off. Much to see and do,” he says. Best not to elongate that particular conversation.

He heads for the nearest emergency exit: in this case, a dusty hallway that’ll at least give him the illusion of escaping. He feels Nancy’s eyes burning into his back as he goes.

\--

He wakes up on day two with his back desperately protesting the treatment of sleeping without a mattress. This kind of slumming it could’ve been okay when he was eighteen, but by now, he needs his lumbar support and memory foam. He’s too old to doss on the ground like this any more than a few hours.

He stares up at the tall ceiling, stomach rumbling, while the bleak prospect of his own reality comes back to him. He was dreaming of something. He can’t quite remember what, but a foggy image remains, something like springtime in Devonshire. His brother might’ve been there. Dylan hasn’t seen him since he left for the Air Force. The thought bruises him a bit in the center of his chest, but there’s no use crying over spoiled relationships with your siblings. Not now, anyway. Not here.

If stewing in this pyramid is punishment for a life badly lived, Dylan has to wonder what everyone else has done to deserve being down here, assuming he believes in the theory of karma. Although, karma as he’s seen it usually just delivers little slaps to the wrist, not eternal damnation in an Egyptian tomb. He can understand Abdullah being down here, seeing as, for all his knowledge, Abdullah is a horrible person with arguably no soul, but the rest?

He considers it while he shifts his groaning spine. Jamila might be here to be punished for her sheer stupidity, if not because she’s most liked forced every human she’s ever met to listen to her alien apocalypse theories like a salesman pushing product. And Lily—he can’t even pin it down, but something’s strange about her. Maybe it’s how she sticks to Adbullah like a leashed puppy looking for a treat. He already got the occasional earful of her sucking up to him before the pyramid caved in, but now that they’re all stuck in here together, it’s been all too easy to see how much she dotes on him. 

Almost pathetically so. Dylan isn’t sure she ever leaves his side. And then there’s all that… mysterious mumbling to each other in shady corners.

“Those two seem awfully chummy, don’t you think?” he mutters to Nancy later, after he’s dug through the canned food to find something remotely resembling breakfast. She doesn’t answer, but instead takes a long look at the evidence, eyes hard. “Think they’re more than just mentor and protege?”

“She idolizes him, that’s for sure,” Nancy says. “And he doesn’t strike me as the type who minds.”

“Being idolized? Oh, absolutely. Lives for it, probably.” He watches as Lily leans in to whisper something to Abdullah, her eyes wide. What Dylan wouldn’t give to be fruit fly on her collarbone now just to hear whatever mystery is going on between those two. “D’you trust them?”

“I don’t think I can really trust anyone here.”

He gasps. “What, even me? Oh, how you wound me!”

“You mean the guy who was driven here to a totally new site by a group of mysterious men?” Nancy snorts. “Yeah, him, I trust.”

Right, that. Dylan feels his comedic veneer slip a bit. “You really should,” he says. “He’s just trying to be a good guy.”

“Most good guys don’t have to point out to the world that that’s what they are,” Nancy says. “Their actions do that on their own.”

“I suppose you might be right about that,” he concedes. 

“And they don’t carry around a dozen tour guide IDs,” she continues, emboldened. “And they don’t leave live cobras for me in my bunk.”

“ _What?_ ” He blinks a few times, trying to make sense of Nancy’s accusations. “Hold on. You found a snake on your bed?”

“Yes! A _live_ one.”

“And you think I put it there? _Why?_ ”

“I saw the live snake pouch in your bag. Why else would you have one?”

“You saw a—what?” He's done a lot of unsavory things in his time to get ahead, but wrangling a deadly cobra into some hare-brained scheme? That’s a little too extra even for him. “ _What_ snake pouch? Whatever you saw, it wasn’t mine.”

“Really? It just happened to be in your bag?”

“Yes!” Dylan says, starting to feel a little indignant. “What on earth would I be doing with poisonous snakes, for god’s sake? With my luck, I’d’ve ended up being its next victim.”

“It’s just very suspicious, that’s all,” Nancy coolly says.

“You know what _I’m_ finding suspicious? The fact that you think someone _deliberately_ weaseled a snake on your bed. Never mind that we’re in the desert and these things do tend to roam around out here.” He frowns. “Why would somebody do that to you, exactly?”

Nancy’s quiet for a moment, her eyes pivoting quickly left. Dylan follows suit, and—yup, there they are. Abdullah and Lily, blatantly listening in. Lily seems to be trying to cover it up and be inconspicuous about this, but still— _blatant_.

“Excuse me,” Dylan says loudly, addressing the two of them as his hands find his hips. “Do you two need something, or do you just want to go back to eavesdropping?”

Lily opens her mouth. Just as a pressured stutter comes out, Abdullah jumps in, cutting her off. “It’s a very small tomb, you see,” he says. “Sound travels. Words move.” He gives them both a shark’s grin. “If it bothers you so much, feel free to leave the pyramid.”

Dylan, stupidly, chances a sidealong glance at the entrance. Still sealed. “Very funny,” he says. He turns to Nancy, who seems even more withdrawn than before thanks to those listening louses over there. There’s something strange about her, and not in the way that something’s strange about Jamila. She’s definitely keeping something under her hat, and there’s a good chance somebody else knows what it is if cobras are popping up in her bed willy nilly.

That, or she’s paranoid out of her mind. The desert heat can do that to you.

He turns to her, lowering his voice.

“You must really think I’m some sort of hooligan,” Dylan mutters, not all too pleased. He thought he had been quite charming all this while. “Why don’t you believe me that I’m not a bad person?”

“All right,” Nancy says, straightening up. “You want me to trust you? Tell me why you’re here.”

He groans. “The one thing I don’t want to share with you. Did I not tell you to _drop that_?”

“Why? What are you hiding?”

“Nothing that puts anyone in danger,” Dylan promises, which he hopes—with a clench in his gut—is the truth. A little black market dirty money never hurt anyone. Sure, it’s wrong and immoral and not the nicest thing in the world to do, but it’s not on par with, say, _murder_ or _genocide_ or running around putting deadly snakes in everyone’s beds. 

“And does this have anything to do with what you were talking about with Abdullah?” Nancy asks. “Or should I say, _conspiring_?”

Dylan’s stomach lurches. It sure has been getting its fair share of exercise ever since Nancy came into his life, that’s certain. “Conspiring!” he repeats. “Nancy. We were just talking.”

“About what?”

“The mysteries of life,” he says. “What shampoo he uses. What shampoo _I_ use. What does it matter?”

He rubs a hand over his face, grimacing at the days-old stubble, much too bristly to the touch. Unsurprisingly, living in a pyramid isn’t agreeing with him.

“Maybe we ought to change the subject,” Dylan suggests. “We get along much better when we aren’t discussing the sordid life you assume I’m living.”

“Or maybe we just shouldn’t talk,” Nancy suggests, voice frosty.

Sure, Dylan thinks. There are loads of other things he’d be up for aside from talking. He has the feeling, though, that she wouldn’t take kindly to him joking about having to repopulate the pyramid. He can’t exactly blame her for her coldness, though. That happens when you spend a few days without a bathroom, proper food, a hairbrush, and other modern day conveniences taken for granted. She, admittedly, does look a bit haggard compared to when Dylan met her. Her braid isn’t quite so neat. Her shirt’s gotten a bit dirty. Lack of sleep has made itself apparent around her eyes. The fact that she’s still so striking, is, well. Concerning.

“Fine,” Dylan says, determined not to let her bad mood ooze into him. “When you come to your senses, I’ll be here.” He looks around the pyramid, at the blocked staircase. “Where else could I be?” he mutters under his breath.

\--

The problem is, as infuriating as she is, and as much as she might not want to hang out with him, Nancy is easily Dylan’s first choice of who to spend time with in this limited menu of conversational choices in this pyramid. It started out so big, coincidentally, in his own head, and by now it just seems smaller and smaller. Each hour it gets a bit smaller. Soon it’ll be the size of the crummy apartment in London he once rented for a few overpriced months that could’ve comfortably fit no more than a family of mice.

He has absolutely no interest chatting with the space nutter Jamila, Abdullah would probably enjoy stoning him with temple rocks more than making small talk with him after that botched attempt to join his illegal club, and Lily—he’s still convinced something’s definitely a bit wrong with her. Something’s definitely wrong with everyone in this pyramid, a veritable smorgasbord of assorted Breakfast Club weirdos, but Nancy is by far his favorite. Even with all her nagging questions.

She’s sharp. Dylan likes that about her. She could probably find out everything about his Machiavellian black market plans and ruin everything if she tried to figure out, but thankfully, Dylan is pretty certain that she’s more occupied elsewhere. She’s still on the search for Nefertari, which is all well and good, except what will it even matter if they all die down here together before they can make their discovery public?

“Why are you still bothering?” he asks upon finding her studying the walls in the tunnel. “Nancy. We could literally die down here.”

“We’re not going to die down here.” She sounds confident enough that he nearly believes her. Although dying in an ancient temple while searching for a corpse might just be a pretty swell way to go, comparatively. “And what else are we supposed to be doing if we’re stuck down here anyway?”

“Um. Recounting happy times? Sharing first kiss stories? Patty cake?”

“Right. I think I’m going to stick with translating hieroglyphs.”

She turns all her focus back to the mural. Her concentration is unlike anything Dylan’s ever seen. She must be really crazy about Nefertari, he thinks. Or fixating on work just happens to be the only thing that’s keeping her from spiraling and freaking out like the rest of them. He’s still awaiting his own breakdown. He’s due for it any moment, he’s sure.

“What are you seeing?” The _that I’m not?_ goes unsaid. It’s not that it’s not marvelous and ancient history and all that—but it’s also just a wall. With some scribblings that may very well say _ur mom is fit_ or _made you look_ on them. Who _really_ knows for sure?

“Clues,” Nancy says. She flips a few pages ahead in her notebook, and over her shoulder, Dylan spies hundreds of translations. Good god. “Things that could be important.”

“Looks like the diary entry of an Egyptian teenage girl to me,” he says, folding his arms across his chest. Maybe it’s all his guide work—he’s just gotten used to seeing priceless history as part of a routine and isn’t fazed by it anymore. It’s all old-hat and reusable jokes by now. _And this hieroglyph,_ he’d explain now, in his best guide voice, _looks remarkably like a blender, don’t you think? Stumps archaeologists even today!_

“It’s probably a bit more significant than that,” Nancy says. “You must see a lot of these to be so blasé about them.”

“That I do,” he says. “I’m a great guide, haven’t you heard? Although I hope you don’t think I’ve gotten bored.”

“Seems like it sometimes,” she tells him. “I don’t know how. I’ve seen lots of great things, and it never gets dull. Only better and better.”

“Lots of great things, huh?” he repeats. He leans gently against the wall, trying to catch her eye. “The life of a—what was it you do again?”

She takes a moment, as if she isn’t even sure herself. “I do lots of things here and there,” she says.

“Here and there? Where is that, exactly?”

“All over the world, really.”

“All over the world?” Is she even real, this girl? “Tell me,” he says, stepping closer, hoping to distract Nancy from the wall, to divert her attention to him. “What sort of things have you seen?”

She shrugs, but the question seems to give her pause. “Lots, really.”

“Tell me the very best.”

She smiles. “I don’t think I could pick just one.”

“Try. Or my own curiosity will strangle me.”

She seems to think hard on this for a while, even going as far as to lower the notebook. Finally, she says, “Maybe when I was in France. I found all these works of art that everyone thought had been gone for decades. It was stained glass.”

“France?” he repeats. “What were you doing there? Haven’t most Americans your age traveled no further than their own gardens?”

“I travel a lot,” she says.

“And when you go on these great travels,” he says, leaning against the wall, “do you go alone?”

Nancy’s eyes meet his. She looks quickly away again. “Uh.” She seems befuddled, adorably so. “Yes.”

“No… travel partner?” he asks.

“Not really.”

“So the position’s open and accepting applications?”

“What are you getting at?”

He raises his eyebrows, hoping they carry their own words. “I’m saying, that offer from earlier still stands about seeing the world together. I think you and I could get into some real trouble, if you catch my drift.”

“I get into enough trouble on my own,” she says, and it sounds like a rejection, but it also isn’t quite. He takes it for what it’s worth.

When this is all over, Dylan thinks, a tiny bubble of hope growing to life in his chest, they could run into each other. They could even arrange it. After this little less than stellar experience, he could do with getting away from Egypt for a while. He could even go back to America, see if he could work on those paranormal tours with John Grey again, or maybe conquer Canada, or Ireland, or New Zealand. There’re still so many places to go, and he doesn’t want to die breathing in hot dust in a pyramid never having seen them.

And Nancy, she travels—it’s not out of the realm of possibility that they might wind up in the same spot some day. After this hell on earth situation they’ve experienced together, don’t they owe each other that much? Checking in now and then, like two old friends might.

Old friends. Right. Dimly, he wonders if he’s as obvious to everyone else as he is to himself. Specifically Nancy—has she cottoned on yet? He’s not exactly been subtle, but it would still be embarrassing if she knew just how much he means his invitations and offers to her. Most likely, she thinks he’s just feeding her a recycled pick-up line, one with no real weight behind it.

He would understand her if she did. It’s been a while since he’s done this for real. Offhanded flirting has become second nature for him on the job, and it’s getting harder and harder for him to peel the authentic stuff from the act, but he still recalls the emotions that come with an actual connection, no matter how long ago his last real relationship was. Nancy’s the opposite of her, truly. The confidence she carries with her is unparalleled to any girl Dylan’s dated before. It’s almost alarming.

She’d do him good, probably. Saying that out loud, though, definitely isn’t a good idea.

“Enough trouble on your own,” he says instead, folding his arms behind his head as he settles onto the ground, settling in for a few stories. “Want to tell me more?”

Nancy’s mouth curves; Dylan’s too slow to recognize it as a smile at first. Once it’s gone, he’s ridiculously annoyed that he didn’t get to soak it in longer. She puts down her pencil, a promising sign. “What do you want to know?”

He shrugs. “Anything you want to share.”

“All right,” she says. “There was one time,” she begins, and launches into a memory. Something about a theater in America being demolished and a great big kidnapping scandal. Dylan listens carefully, hooked without even meaning to be.

\--

There’s something odd about Jamila, beyond all the glaring oddness of the Area 51 devotion. Dylan can’t quite put his finger on it. Maybe it’s because she, just like Nancy, is still spending her time staring at hieroglyphs as if she’s trying to riddle them out. 

He feels, unnervingly, like everyone in this pyramid is harboring some sort of secret. Not being in on them is disturbing.

The isolation of the tunnels is getting to him. So is sleeping on the ground and waking up feeling like a dozen sumo wrestlers walked up and down his spine all night long.

Breakfast that day is canned peaches, which would taste a whole lot sweeter if the diminishing pile of emergency food in the corner wasn’t directly in his eyesight. He eats in any empty room, every chew echoing, while all the others are off partying somewhere without him. He would welcome the silence if it wasn’t so foreboding.

He goes off in search of others and finds Jamila first. She’s in her usual haunt, jotting down notes from the giant gray wall in one of the tunnels. Dylan watches her for a few moments, unmoving. Some instinct part of himself still thinks she’s missing a few marbles. That, or she’s hiding them from everyone else.

If she is, the tactic is so underhandedly clever that Dylan might just have to fall in love with her a little bit. Which he probably would if his eyes weren’t so embarrassingly glued elsewhere.

Three minutes of doodling later, she reaches down into her bag—empty from the looks of it—and yet still manages to pull out a thick notebook. Dylan blinks, not sure if he even saw that correctly, and yet, it happens again. Is this—is he missing something here?

“Dylan!”

He looks up, startled, and finds an equally startled Jamila staring back at him, the only exception being that she manages to school the surprise out of her expression faster than him. She gives him a gentle smile, one _far_ too innocent for what Dylan’s starting to suspect of her. If she were to suddenly pull rabbits out of her sleeve he would not be the least surprised.

“Didn’t mean to shock you,” he says, matching one benign smile for another. “Nice bag. Does it… hold a lot?”

Her smile doesn’t give way. “Oh, this and that,” she says.

Uh huh. “Great,” he says. There’s a good chance she’s just crazy and harmless, but there’s also a chance she’s crazy and _harmful_. More and more, Dylan is itching to get out of this pyramid. “Well. I’ll leave you to your… duties.”

He waves at the wall Jamila seems to be fixating on like a student writing down notes from a PowerPoint presentation. All these people so obsessed with the hieroglyphs—they must not have TVs. He makes to retreat, but Jamila clears her throat.

“Does she know?” she asks, voice pitched low.

“Does who know what now?”

“Nancy. Does she know why you’re here?”

The bottom of Dylan’s stomach drops out for a moment, hitting the sandy ground. How fucking translucent is he? The next time he sticks his feelers into the black market, he’s going to have to try very different tactics.

For now, he might as well stick with his old ones. Like offering well-placed distractions.

“I don’t know,” he says, fighting for nonchalance. He leans in, raising an eyebrow. “Does she know why you are?”

One small upward tick of Jamila’s mouth gives the lie to her casualness. “Of course she does. As do you. As does everyone.”

“Oh, I definitely do,” Dylan lies. “But the rest? Can’t speak for them.”

Jamila’s lips set into a thin line. There’s a good chance she’s not fond of being blackmailed.

“All I’m trying to say,” she says, tone gone cross, “is that she won’t be thrilled when she figures it out. I’d be careful if I were you.”

He can’t figure out if it’s a threat or a genuine piece of advice. There’s too much befuddling mystery around Jamila for him to know. For now, he settles for laughing it off. All he’s really looking for here is to get out of Jamila’s sight, somewhere where he won’t feel like someone’s trying to telepathically decode him.

“Thanks for the tip,” he says. “I’ll leave you to your anchovy—annual—anonymity—”

“Annunaki.”

“—yes, that’s it! _Annunaki_ conferences.” And your weird little bag, Dylan thinks, eyes flicking downward at it. “See you around the pyramid.”

\--

Jamila’s words sit in his gut like undigested street food for the rest of the day. As unpleasant as it was to have his ass calmly handed to him by a woman who may or may not believe in extraterrestrials, she has a point: if Nancy does catch wind of why he’s here, that’ll be the end of whatever bond they’ve formed.

He’s not sure why the prospect disappoints him so much.

It shouldn’t even matter—for all his efforts, he couldn’t worm his way into the black market anyway. He’s hardly Public Enemy Number One if he never even got the chance to become an outright criminal; as a matter of fact, if anyone should be on trial here, it’s Abdullah, who Dylan is fairly certain is the head of this particular operation, no matter how slyly he denies it. The only downside is that there’s no logical way for Dylan to reveal his information to anyone without admitting his own involvement.

He climbs and crosses the pillars in hopes of finding a quiet room to have to himself, somewhere he can sit alone with his conscience and maybe get a good nap in. As hard as it is to reach it, the upstairs nook Nancy showed him is the perfect spot to mull in silence over one’s own mistakes and failures. When he clambers his way in, however, he sees that he wasn’t the only one in search of solitude; Nancy’s inside, sitting cross-legged in front of the marked wall.

The anatomically incorrect woman hunched over all her pharaohs glares at Dylan, as disturbing as always.

“This has become something of a tourist spot, I take it,” he says, flexing his fingers. His palms are a little sore after climbing those unforgiving pillars. “Do you mind the company?”

“There’s enough room for both of us.”

“Splendid,” Dylan says, settling onto the ground. The sand there is cool, soft to the touch. He watches as Nancy consults her books in between long, critical stares at the messages on the walls, the paint faded into little more than unsaturated browns. Once, perhaps, this pyramid was alive with color and life. Nothing like the stifling graveyard it is now.

Nancy doesn’t match the bleak surroundings. She’s a bright presence, curious eyes and relentless determination a stark contrast to the unnerving quiet of the pyramid. Dylan’s starting to miss his lawn chair from up above. It was suffocatingly hot and the sun was an unyielding predator, but the little things Dylan had completely taken for granted were there, like fresh air and a conveniently nearby water tank. He closes his eyes and tries not to think about how thirsty he is, how he has to ration his water like he’s a soldier from the world war.

The soft scritch of Nancy’s pencil in her notebook is almost soothing, considering how much Dylan wants to rip apart his skin by the inch just to have something to do in this goddamn place. He opens his eyes again, letting his eyes trail over the pleasing curve of her neck, the unkempt braid laying against her back.

Dylan waits for Nancy’s writing to come to a pause. “So how long have you been interested in ancient Egypt?”

“Uh. Well, always, I guess.”

“Is that why you’re so good translating the hiero-whatsits?”

“Actually, I’ve only been doing that for a few days now.”

“Oh, you have not.”

She looks over her shoulder at him. “No, really. I’m pretty new to all this.”

“Is that so? So can you teach me?”

She shrugs. “Sure. We have lots of time right now anyway.”

She folds a book out in front of him, one full of notes, of translated hieroglyphs, of deciphered messages. Just looking at it gives Dylan a headache. Has she done all this in the short while she’s been here? He looks for a few seconds, tries to muster up the interest necessary to care about it, and falls short. Doesn’t seem worth it.

“You know, I think I’ll pass on the dead language course,” he decides. “Did you know I failed French two years in a row? Unlikely ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs will be much easier.”

“You aren’t interested in what messages they wanted us to know?”

“Not really,” he says. “I mean, I’m sure some of it is great, but a lot might just mean _hey, I told you a million times to stop leaving the milk out_ or _dad, you better let me go to that party or I’m going to burn this pyramid down_. The usual stuff.”

“But this could be Nefertari’s tomb. The hieroglyphs could lead us right to her.”

“Or not.” He tilts a bit closer to her. “I don’t know about you, Nancy, but I’m much more interested in talking to people enjoying the twenty first century with me. I find we have a lot more in common than those from, say, the Middle Ages.”

“Jamila hasn’t given up either,” Nancy tells him.

“Yes, but Jamila’s a total nutter,” he says.

Nancy shakes her head. “I don’t think she is.”

Dylan thinks of her fervent stare at the hieroglyphs, of the moments when she seems almost lucid, of her strange, magician’s assistant bag. “You might be right,” he says, but doesn’t want to fully admit to it quite yet. “All right, show me some hieroglyphs. I want the good ones.”

“The good ones?” she repeats.

“Yes, the best of the best, preferably.”

“All right. Come with me.”

She gets to her feet, shaking sand off her lap, and leads the way down the pillars. They head down the hall, sand crunching underfoot, before heading for the antechamber containing the tomb. Dylan pulls his lighter out of his pocket and flicks it on, holding it to the lamp until the fire catches. Even then, the lighting in here is moody at best, like something out of a teenager’s seance. He’s not too crazy about being in here, the _curse_ notwithstanding. It’s a bit eerie. Dylan squints through the dark at the wall Nancy gestures toward.

There’s an inscription next to the door that catches his eye. It looks as much like an inscrutable code as the rest do, nothing but carved creatures and shapes staring back at him. Might as well be Braille or Cyrillic to him.

He points at it. “So what does that say?”

“That one?” Nancy inclines her head toward it. She gives a wry smile. “Basically, whoever broke the seal has agonies of death awaiting them.”

“Fun,” Dylan mutters. “Who’s the lucky recipient of this well-wishing?”

“Well, me,” Nancy says. “I kind of broke the seal.”

A collection of spider legs seems to crawl up his back. “Why do I suddenly feel like I need to run from the room?” he mutters. “And keep a minimum distance of twenty feet from you.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in the curse.”

“I don’t, really, but I’m also not crazy about ancient threats that sound like _that_.”

Nancy just shrugs. Dylan can’t figure out if she’s fearless or just clueless.

“I’ve seen a lot of supposed curses in my day. They’re all mostly psychological.”

“Have you?” he asks, curious. “Are a lot of people putting curses on you? What kind of girl _are_ you?”

Nancy grimaces. “The kind who gets lots of curses put on her, I guess.”

“And I thought _I_ was the unlucky one.”

“About that—why, exactly?”

He shrugs, not too keen to get into the specifics. He’s spent enough time—typically late at night, in the dark of his apartment—thinking about how many wrong turns his life has taken.

“I’m just not—uh, a winner,” he says delicately. “I’m more of a loser. Consistently and often. Other people tend to pick up on that too.”

“Who?”

If she wasn’t so damn earnest, Dylan might find her intrigue annoying. “Everyone,” he says. “My ex-family, my ex-girlfriends, my ex-bosses.”

“How come they’re all _ex_?”

“I guess you’d have to ask them,” Dylan says. Hell if he knows the reason. It’s not like he doesn’t try with people. He gets the feeling they’re not really interested in trying with him. The worst part always is that the ones he tries the hardest with seem to reciprocate the effort the least.

He glances over at Nancy, then quickly away again when something funny tickles him. Is this that familiar prickling of considering to be a good person poking at him again? He doesn’t care for the sensation.

“Maybe,” he theorizes, fiddling with an old vase by the door, “I’m just hard to get used to.”

His mother always complained that he was a handful. His father had always said much worse. His friends—well, it’s hard to keep up with someone who’s always moving, always traveling to the next tour guide It Spot. He’s lost them left and right. It’s not that easy to _stay in touch_ over Facebook like everyone always says.

“Hmm,” Nancy said. “I don’t think you’re that bad.”

“You don’t think I’m that bad?” he repeats. He suddenly wants to laugh. “Go ahead and print that on a plaque. That might be the best compliment I’ve ever heard.”

She smiles, but there’s an undercurrent of something else there, like she’s checking herself. Perhaps reminding herself not to get too close to a potentially unsavory character, someone who may or may not be a snake handler. Dylan sighs.

“I should get back to work,” she says.

“Or,” Dylan proposes hopefully, “you could not, and spend time with me instead.”

She almost seems to consider it. “You’re not much of a hard worker, are you?” she asks instead.

“I’m a very hard worker! I’m just also a believer in taking breaks.”

“Pretty long breaks.”

“What can I say? Gotta recharge.”

Her smile grows. It’s infectious, really, almost enchanting. If he stares too long, it might blind him. Like the sun, perhaps.

“Maybe later,” she says. “Good luck with the hieroglyphs.”

\--

It’s not that being a tour guide isn’t a hard job, Dylan has to say. He _is_ a hard worker, he just also happens to enjoy his job, so it isn’t nearly as hard, as, say, working in a tax office might be. Play to your strengths, and all that. He likes people. He likes traveling.

Maybe a little too much, some would say. He hasn’t really formed a lasting relationship in years because of his globe-jumping. Perhaps the occasional three-month long girlfriend, or the more usual one-night-stand and then some. What can he say, he’s a free spirit.

He first thought Nancy was something of an all-American homebody, but he’s starting to see just how wrong he was. She’s the kind of person who somehow manages to be part of a huge Egyptian dig without even being an archaeology student. And somehow also manages to still look distractingly put-together even after being stuck in a pyramid for a few days. And is positively obsessed with solving riddles.

If Dylan is a self-proclaimed hard worker, as he told her himself, she’s a _powerhouse_.

“Come on,” he says, nudging her with his elbow after finding her, hours later, scribbling away in her notebook like there’s going to be a pop quiz later. “You have to take a break sometime. How long before this rubbish starts looking like Greek to you, anyway?”

“I’m so close,” Nancy murmurs, sounding fully concentrated; there’s a chance she didn’t even hear him. “I know I can find her. She’s here, in this pyramid!”

“Come on,” he says again, grabbing Nancy’s forearm to pull her away from the wall of—okay, Dylan wants to be honest here, _scribbles_. “Give that brain a break. Besides, it’s not like we’re going anywhere soon.”

“Maybe not, but we’re running out of time.”

Dylan swallows on a suddenly dry throat. He hopes she doesn’t mean that in the unfortunately permanent sense that he sensed was being implied. And if so, is this _really_ what she wants to do with the now-short remainder of her life? As a happy hedonist, Dylan really can’t stand for this.

“Let me show you the pyramid,” he says, pulling on her elbow. “Give you the grand tour, that is. From an actual, in-the-flesh tour guide.”

She scoffs. “Do you even know anything real about this site?”

“To be honest, no,” he answers, hopelessly truthful. “But I can make lots up. Which is actually more entertaining anyway.”

Nancy smiles at her shoes for a moment, then gets to her feet. “All right,” she says. “Show me what you got.”

“Brilliant!” he says, claps his hands together, and marches off for the first antechamber.

He starts putting a tour together in his head as they make their way. Bizarrely enough, he misses this part of his life. As little money as it’s given him over the years—honestly, just _paltry_ amounts—he quite likes being a tour guide. It lets him combine all his favorite skills (bullshitting and charming innocent tourists) into one handy package that’s actually _fun_.

“All right,” he says, brandishing his arms and lowering his register into the pleasing rumble that comes with Tour Guide Dylan. “Here we are, in a pyramid that may just contain Nefertiti, the Lost Queen of Egypt—”

“Nefertari,” Nancy interrupts.

“What? Oh, yes. Of course.” He returns to his trademark brandishing and roguish winking. “And may I say, what a handsome group? You, the dashing lady in the front—you look especially lovely. Egypt looks good on you.”

“Dylan.”

“Yes, yes, back to harnessing knowledge. This tomb is fascinating—does anyone know why?”

“Um, because it might contain the Lost Queen?”

“Very good guess!” Dylan says, with all the necessary enthusiasm. “Actually, it’s because it’s currently home to the skeletons of five modern-age humans who ended up recently trapped inside the pyramid. Rumor has it, it’s haunted by one of them—a very vengeful tour guide.”

“Ha, ha.”

“Oh, but be careful—his restless spirit isn’t too fond of being chuckled at.” Dylan walks backward a few steps, beckoning her to follow. “Here you’ll find a few faded drawings that—well, let’s just say, Picasso didn’t draw them. Apparently Egyptian art classes weren’t available.”

He glances at Nancy, looking for a reaction. It’s unreasonably pleasing to see her stifle her laughter behind a twitching smile.

“Come along now—there’s still many more exciting things to see—that’s it.” He continues, waving her forward. There’s a pile of sand on the ground by the wall, one that he gently drags his foot through. “See here! _History itself_ could sit in this very sand, ready to be unearthed. Who knows _what_ could be excavated from this pile.”

“That pile’s already been searched, you know.”

“I do believe, Miss Drew,” he says, putting his index finger on her lips. “You are not the guide of this tour.”

She rolls her eyes, swatting his hand away.

“How come you’re a guide, anyway?”

“How come I’m a guide? I like history,” he says. “I always have, really. It was the one subject in school I actually did the reading for. Still flunked the class, but the devil is in the details, isn’t he?”

“I wouldn’t have guessed that about you.”

“Let me guess. You thought I was all late night parties and laying moves on cute girls and showing up thirty minutes late for work, right?”

Nancy looks shocked. Caught red-handed, perhaps. As smart as she is, Dylan could tell from a mile away that she was the type of girl to pass judgment willy nilly.

“I didn’t say that,” she says.

“No, but your face did. Didn’t even need words.” He looks away, pinching the bridge of his nose. This cabin-fever is starting to get to him. Or, given the circumstances, is it pyramid-fever? “I know what you think of me, Nancy. You don’t trust me. Think I’m an unsavory character who’s hiding things. Am I on the mark here?”

“Well, are you?”

The nerve.

“Everyone’s got secrets, Nancy,” he says instead of the humorous brush-off he’s itching to lean toward. “I don’t know why you think you’re entitled to mine.”

It doesn’t work on her quite as well as expected. She propels forward, fiercer than ever, as if his cool words have somehow fanned the flames of her righteous fire, expression dark.

“If you’re putting everyone here in danger,” she warns, “I am entitled to them. We all are, at least while we’re stuck here together.”

“ _Danger?_ ” What did she think he was, an undercover terrorist? “Nancy, for god’s sake, the only danger is the fact that we’re all _trapped in a bloody tomb_ and don’t know how to get out.”

Nancy doesn’t respond, eyebrows furrowed and mouth curled into a frown. A mad impulse grabs hold of Dylan, and he reaches out to touch her jaw, to ground her.

“What are you hiding?” he asks. “You’re acting like the rest of us are the shady ones, but you’re just as bad—why are you here? Why are you so convinced we’re in danger? What are you not telling the rest of us?”

Nancy looks away, tilting her chin but not quite twisting out of Dylan’s grip. Whatever it is she’s hiding, she’s not going to share it. He can see that in her stiff body language alone. He has to admit, he’s a little hurt, even if she _is_ someone he’s only known for a few days. He has a charming, trustworthy face; everyone tells him as much. For her to not only not be charmed but also not trust him goes nearly against the very laws of nature.

There’s always the slight possibility that she can see his true character and exactly what it is he’s up to, but—well, he doesn’t even want to consider that being the case.

He clears his throat and takes a broad step back from her. “I think we’ll cut the tour short today,” he says. “That’s enough for now, enough to give you a taste. Wouldn’t want to bore you with my extensive knowledge of this site all in one afternoon.”

The smile he gives her is tight. Maybe it’s better to keep her at a distance, especially now when in closer quarters than ever before, he’s in bigger danger than ever of his plan being discovered. Being so chummy with her is risky. Being more—well, that’s just stupid.

\--

They have beans that night for dinner. The box of food still in the corner that the crew dragged down here weeks ago is starting to become a topic of hot debate that they all quabble over for a bit—Abdullah thinks they’re all in his possession, unsurprisingly, and everyone else disagrees—but what they all end up with is nothing better than a Tiny Tim meal. Dylan eats the beans, still cold, straight from the can, awfully mealy, and tries not to let his mind wander to the Kushari vendor down the street from his apartment or the shepherd’s pie he used to get back home in England. This self-flagellating won’t do anyone any good.

Alongside bottled water, the lamp oil and Dylan’s lighter are great commodities these days. They ignite a fire in the center of the pyramid with some scraps of paper from Lily’s notebook, albeit a small one that doesn’t exude too much warmth. To think of how badly he had been sweating up above.

It doesn’t seem like anyone’s in the mood to talk at this point as they eat. Any optimism that used to exist here about their escape has been fully sucked out and replaced with a heaviness that he can very nearly _feel_ , one that pushes down like a guillotine.

If they really don’t get help, and really no one finds them, and they’re stuck down here until they die—who exactly in Dylan’s life will even care, let alone know? He’s been too much of a transient to make a mark anywhere. Ever since he left England against her wishes, he only sends his mother the occasional postcard, and his father’s passed. His ex probably has a restraining order in place against him. Once the month’s rent is up, his landlord might sic a team of bloodhounds on him, but—well, given the circumstances, he doesn’t exactly have a month.

They need to get out of here.

No one says a word, too caught up in their own grim realizations, until Lily speaks up, voice watery.

“Someone will have to come looking for us,” she rationalizes. She looks about three seconds and one chalky bean away from breaking down. “My parents. I haven’t been able to call in ages. They’ll know something’s wrong.”

“And do what, exactly? Send a SWAT team?” Dylan asks.

“You’re just upset because no one's coming for you,” Lily snaps, and as much as he knows it, it still hurts to hear it aloud.

Everyone clearly feels the tension in the room after that moment settles like a bad stench lingering in the air. Jamila looks quickly between them both, sighing.

“It’s better to be optimistic,” she says.

Abdullah huffs out a breath from under his nostrils. There’s a good chance that the word _optimism_ isn’t in Abdullah’s vocabulary, and an even better chance that he frowns upon those who dare to wield it, because that’s just the kind of weird curmudgeon Abdullah is. Those self-important half-famous archaeologists are just build like that, he supposes.

Dylan doesn’t talk again the rest of the meal. It’s just no fun when no one’s laughing at his jokes or witty banter. These people are like bloody _statues_ , only here to wallow in the misery of their own demises. Afterwards, everyone stomps off like they have somewhere to be, which is as amusing as it annoying. Lily curls into a ball on top of the tarp to mope and sleep, possibly both at once, Abdullah vanishes to some other part of the pyramid, probably to stop having to look at anybody’s face for a few hours, and Jamila grabs her bag and runs off like she’s found a radio somewhere she can use to communicate with Mars.

And then there’s Nancy, who watches all of the above happen like a supervising police officer. If she whipped out a Pinkerton badge at some point in the near future, Dylan wouldn’t be too surprised.

Then again, Nancy’s obviously hiding something of her own. There’s a good chance she’s her own brand of criminal, and Dylan just isn’t observant enough to figure out what kind. Why else was she so eager to snoop in Lily’s things? Why else would someone be targeting her with cobras and the like? Normal, everyday people don’t get snakes sicced on them. It’s all the more likely that she’s a bounty hunter or an assassin or a thief of Egyptian history, pockets already stuffed with pyramid pebbles and amulets.

“What was all that with Lily?” Nancy asks after Dylan finishes eating. She sounds supremely uncomfortable. To be fair, Dylan had no idea that this trip to Cairo would result in what is basically an unfilmed version of Big Brother, everyone smushed together into a space just small enough to drum up all sorts of drama.

Or maybe it’s more like The Bachelor? He’s not sure yet.

“Nothing,” he says, sighing. “Tensions are just running high, I’m afraid.”

“I thought you liked her.”

“I’d say she doesn’t much like _me_.” And it’s not like he blames her; hospitality is hardly a necessity when trying to survive being trapped inside an ancient pyramid. Besides, he doesn’t think she took very well to him trying to slag Abdullah off to her. Nancy, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to mind badmouthing the bloke. “I like _her_ just fine.”

“Mm,” Nancy hums, not quite making eye contact.

He’d like to think it’s because she’s jealous, but it’s far more likely she just doesn’t care.

Still—

“I like you much better, though,” he says with a wink. Nancy looks up at him, surprised, almost charmed, and then seems to remember herself and shakes those emotions aside, or at least their visibility.

It makes Dylan also recall a few things, namely, their little tiff from earlier. That really, he should be quite cross with her. No matter how on the money it is, it isn’t very good manners to accuse someone of being a hooligan.

Jamila was right. She’s hot on his trail.

“I think I’m going to sleep,” he says, suddenly unnerved. “It’s been a long day.”

Not that he knows what time of day it is, at least not by sunlight. He knows the time in here is Nope o’clock, given everyone’s piss poor attitudes. Annoyingly enough, it even feels like it’s spreading a bit; that conversation left him less than cheery. If Nancy wasn’t so goddamn elusive, an exchange like that would’ve been obvious, clearly a sign of jealousy. With Nancy, everything is a riddle, a What If and a Could Be.

He wants to just fuck it and tell her outright that she has no reason to be jealous. Hell, if he were perfectly on the level with her, he’d even admit that him saying Lily was _exactly his type, just like his ex-girlfriend_ was little more than an attempt to rile her up, gauge her reaction. He couldn’t be paid to repeat a relationship like that, and he’s fairly certain it was the people who were to blame. Both of them, the combination, not just the neurotic and unhinged female half that he now sees reflected—almost frighteningly so—in Lily.

He turns away from Nancy and gets settled on the tarp, doing his best to ignore the fact that sand has, inevitably, but still a bit earlier than expected given how careful he’s been, gotten everywhere. His sleep schedule has been a mess these days, so he’s not short on exhaustion, but there’s something very intrinsically disconcerting about there being no sign of rescue that’s keeping him awake.

He peeks at the sealed entrance, at the big, jagged rocks standing in between himself and freedom. By tomorrow, he thinks, hoping to will his wish into existence, that damn staircase better be free.

\--

That night seems, unexplainably so, colder than all the rest so far. He can hear winds whipping at the pyramid, sand crumbling from the walls in whispers, storms raging that feel as if they’re thundering through the entire pyramid like a great winter. He doesn't remember the last time the desert was so cold, so rough to him.

His sleep has been fitful, too light to stick. The last time he woke up, he saw that the others had fallen asleep too and someone had turned the lamps off, turning the pyramid dark and gloomy, like a basement underneath a drafty castle. In front of him, Nancy’s stiff shoulders convey the same message of discomfort. He acts on a visceral instinct and scoots forward, pulling her against his chest.

She tenses instantly.

“Dylan,” she whispers. “What are you doing?”

“Sleeping,” he says in her ear. He tugs her close, arm wrapped around her. “Or trying to, anyway.”

She wriggles against the warm, soft cocoon he’s offering her, like an ungrateful worm might. “Can you do that in your personal space?” she suggests.

“Too cold,” he says.

She sighs. “Dylan.”

He matches her sigh with one of his own. She’s so _stubborn_. “Oh, come on, don’t tell me you’re all cozy. It’s awfully cold down here, isn’t it?”

Amazingly, she doesn’t argue. Her arm, pressed against the inside of Dylan’s elbow, is cool to the touch, despite her layers of clothing. Body heat might just be the best thing for them, not that he’d take this opportunity to involve everybody else in this snuggle jamboree.

“See, isn’t that better?” Dylan whispers to her ear when he feels her start to relax again, muscles unclenching.

“Go to sleep,” Nancy says as a response. That there isn’t light available for Dylan to check if her cheeks have gone pink is a travesty, a true mistake.

Extra warmth aside, it isn’t exactly a calming arrangement. Sleep is actually the _furthest_ thing from his mind now that he has Nancy so close. They’ve been out here for what feels like _eons_ , how can he still pick up whiffs of a sweet shampoo from her hair? How can her shirt still be so soft, as if it’s freshly laundered?

This is nice, he thinks without meaning to. Without _wanting_ to. He can’t get attached to this sort of sensation. No matter how soft and sweet-smelling and attractive she is.

His hand finds the dip of her waist, settling there carefully. _Idiot_ , says a voice in his own traitorous mind.

When he wakes up again later after a much-improved sleep, the lamps turned back on, Nancy’s still tucked into his arms, her warmth a pleasing line down his front. Stroke of luck, no one appears to be watching them or even aware of their sleeping arrangement, which is ideal, and not just because Dylan isn’t in the mood for answering questions about it. There’s something very private about this, at least viscerally.

He looks at Nancy, at her uncombed hair and the smooth line of her neck, disappearing into her shirt. He imagines for one delusional moment what it would be like to have this under other circumstances, to have her in his arms at home, a soft breeze coming in through the window, the sunlight bright, the air warm and just a touch dry from the hot summer. How she would wake and turn to face him, eyes still fogged with sleep, and smile at the sight of him.

The fantasy leaves as fast as it comes. _What are you even thinking?_ Dylan wonders, edging on bitter. Under other circumstances, Nancy would never do such a thing, at least not with him.

He’s absurd. He crawls out from under the tarp, shaking out his stiffened limbs, suddenly uncomfortably hot in all the places where Nancy had come into contact with him. He fans air through his shirt, trying to cool down, and stalks away, looking for something— _anything_ —to do that doesn’t involve ogling Nancy.

\--

The search for the exit continues, even if it is fruitless. Dylan spends most of his time pushing against walls in the vain hope that they’ll fall in and make way for a secret hallway leading directly into sweet, sweet fresh air, and any leftover time rueing the fact that he didn’t think ahead enough to bring a cannon.

That tunnel-burrowing idea he had chuckled at days ago is starting to sound necessary.

Nancy is on the same mission. Everybody else is either melting down at the somber outlook of their combined fate or pretending everything is fine and going on with business as usual. Dylan feels like he and Nancy are really the only reasonable middles here.

She’s a smart girl, and once again, Dylan feels the strike of guilt at lying to her. His conscience doesn’t usually flare up like this, and he’s not thrilled with the feeling.

“I just can’t believe that this doesn’t... go anywhere,” Nancy says in regards to the dead end wall at the end of the tunnel. Which tunnel they’re in, Dylan doesn’t even recall anymore. This pyramid is becoming one big blur. That taunting blue cat, though, he’s definitely seen that before.

“Where exactly is it supposed to _go_?” he asks, befuddled. “There’s no doorknob.”

“So it’s just… what? A pointless hallway?”

Humoring her, Dylan pushes against it with his palm. Nothing gives way.

“Well. These old pharaohs sure did love dead ends, eh?” he says, sighing.

“Wait,” Nancy says suddenly.

Her eyes are alight with renewed inspiration. She goes rummaging around in her bag, retrieving a familiar piece of paper. Jamila’s proof of insanity—or to someone equally insane, a code to some great treasure. Dylan has to chuckle when he realizes that Nancy’s actually gone through the trouble to solve it, missing letters penciled in.

“Don’t tell me there’s actually a method to that madness,” he says, but Nancy seems convinced.

She jams the paper in his face, now apparently a solved puzzle. _Blue cat opens tomb_ , it reads.

“Okay,” he says slowly. “But—”

Before he can finish pointing out that there aren’t exactly any blue cats running about, Nancy pulls a small statuette that’s been glued back together out of her pocket, similar in size to the spot on the wall. She pushes it into the indent left there, sliding it into place. Cracks and all, the cat fits in perfectly.

A beat passes, long enough that Dylan almost believes the idea’s a bust. Then a panel slides upward, stone grinding against stone as it goes. A dark abyss seems to be beyond the doorway, nothing but black space—almost as if on command, whispers seem to whisk their way around Dylan’s shoulders. Nancy takes a step forward, determined, and he seizes her shoulder. Some protective instinct grabs hold of him.

“I’ve got this. Can’t let you go first. You never know what dangers lie beyond.”

He grabs his lighter from his pocket, holding it aloft. A thrill runs through him, one he hadn’t been expecting, because if Nefertari really _is_ here—well, he wouldn’t say no to such publicity. Assuming, of course, they’d actually live to tell anyone about their discovery. 

He takes a few steps in, solid ground meeting his feet, so that’s already a plus. The lighter isn’t doing a thing for his ability to see; all this darkness feels, alarmingly, like he’s in a coffin.

“Blast,” he mutters. “It’s absolutely black as pitch in here. Pass me a torch, would you?” He feels for a wall, fingers scraping against old, bristled rock, and finds something cylindrical, something that might just take well to his lighter. “Never mind! I’ve got something here.”

He grabs it, dislodging it from its home within the rock. It comes free after a few tugs, and just as Dylan starts to hold his lighter at its tip to spread the flame, he feels, inexplicably, like something is very, very wrong.

He only has time for a split-second worry of realization and subsequent panic—it comes like a thunder clap, really, quick and too much so to evade—before the rocks come tumbling down. They push him with a force unparalleled to anything he’s felt physically attack his body before, and leave no mercy behind: the first rock hits him right in the sternum and the second on his shin and third on his shoulder, none of them particularly gentle. It’s only when he realizes he’s on the ground, trapped and pinned, an earth-heavy weight on top of him, that he fully comprehends what just happened. He tries to move, can’t.

“Dylan?” Nancy cries behind the wall of rocks. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he says, even though he’s never felt less fine in his life. It’s possible that he’s trying to convince himself of just how fine he actually is—he may be borderline delirious, if his jackrabbit heartbeat is anything to go by. “Could you just shift it a bit so you can get the pressure off.”

He closes his eyes tightly and feels sweat gather on his eyelashes. He tries to focus on something that isn’t the immense crushing sensation, and settles on the sound of Nancy shifting rocks, the rumble and scrape of them moving. He tries to flex his fingers and finds he can’t, not sure if they’re trapped or just numb—he’s not sure how, but his entire body seems stuck between unfeeling numbness and wild, throbbing pain.

The barest amount of pressure subsides after Nancy seems to remove one rock, but it’s not enough. He tries to suck in a deep breath and finds that his lungs are crushed under the massive weight, barely letting him breathe.

“Yes!” he cries, just to ensure that Nancy doesn’t stop there and leave him as is. “If you keep doing things like that I won’t die!”

Nancy says something about shifting more rocks—five more, he thinks she says—and he should be able to breathe again.

“Yes! Yes, that’s it! That’s better!” It’s slight, but he can hear Nancy shifting around stones and he can feel—whether he’s imagining things or not—the pressure get a tiny bit more manageable. He still can’t quite move anything, though. Probably best to not speculate on how many bones he’s broken.

The salt from his sweat is starting to sting his eyes when he blinks again. The tomb is still unthinkingly dark, illuminating not a single shape. Is this where Nefertari’s coffin is? A shudder, a sharp feeling of not belonging that he hadn’t felt before on this site, suddenly strikes him.

_Dylan_ , something hisses, sibilant without needing an S, right next to his ear. Is that Nancy? Is Nancy saying something to him?

“There!” she suddenly shouts. “That should hold. I’ll try and get you some help.”

He blinks over and over, trying to feel the change in the amount of overbearing weight that’s on his body. He’s okay, he thinks. Is he fine? He’s fine.

“It’s okay,” he says. He lick his lips, tastes salt. “Everything’s fine.”

He’s spoken too soon. Something tumbles, the force behind it as if someone had sought to smash it into him, and then a rock is colliding with his forehead, splitting it open. He shouts, the pain blindingly sharp, and he knows without reaching up to touch at his temple that hot blood is trickling down into his hairline.

Nancy’s yelling now, demanding to know if he’s okay, if he’s been hurt, but the world has gone fuzzy around the edges, and someone’s whispering to him, blocking out Nancy’s frenzied questions, the voice shrill like a hissed birdsong. _The mummy, it’s the mummy, it’s Nefertari,_ he thinks, his head a carousel of panicked thoughts, and loses consciousness.

\--

Everything hurts. It’s the first thing he notes when the world drifts back into focus, the pain rippling through his body like a cold sweat.

The rocks, however, are gone. He would be happier about that if his body didn’t still feel as if it were flattened under an anvil, though, because as it is, his lungs feel shaky, his legs don’t seem capable of doing so much as twitching, and his head is probably ten seconds away from blowing up. Something’s dabbing against his temple, pulling sharp stings from his head each time contact is made.

“Hospital,” he croaks, just in case it’s not clear yet that’s what he needs. “Call the hospital.”

He peels his eyes open. A dim temple lays before him, although he’s no longer in the passageway he had followed Nancy into. He’s been dragged into the main hall, atop a makeshift bed made of tarps and linens. His shirt’s gone too, and Dylan realizes a second later that it’s been ripped off, doused with water, and is currently what’s pressing against his head wound.

Nancy’s there, kneeling by him. Jamila is next to her, looking equally grim, while Lily and Abdullah stand behind them, but keeping a fair distance. Abdullah especially is maintaining a particularly wide berth away from him and is regarding Dylan with such open disgust that it looks almost as if he’s legitimately worried that he’s become contagious with the flesh-eating curse Nefertari’s mummy has clearly put on him. Lily’s busy biting her fingernails bloody, visibly shaken, but Abdullah has the audacity to look annoyed.

“We tried,” Jamila says. “But there’s still no reception down here, you know. And I doubt the ambulance could make it down here—not quickly, anyway.”

He coughs, and tastes copper. Not a good sign. Suddenly a bottle of water is being pressed to his lips, and he drinks obediently as it’s tipped forward into his mouth. Abdullah looks more irritated than ever; clearly he thinks Dylan is a complete waste of water at this point.

“Try to relax,” Nancy’s saying. “Don’t move too much.”

“Couldn’t if I wanted to.”

“He shouldn’t sleep,” Jamila says. “He has a head injury.”

Suddenly, he’s never been more tired in his life. He’s never been good at being forbidden from doing things. That sharp look Jamila and Nancy are exchanging is a tad alarming, however.

“Why? Why shouldn’t I sleep?”

“With your head as… injured as it is, we don’t know what state your brain is in. Things could… get worse,” says Jamila. She sounds like she’s doing her best to phrase something delicately.

“What do you mean, worse?”

“Get him out of here,” Abdullah demands. “I don’t want to look at him all day. He’s stinking up this pyramid and it is a pain to look at him.”

Dylan tries to say something in defense of himself, but his battered brain is too under the weather to come up with a retort. The whole world seems fuzzy, foggy, blurred together. 

“For god’s sake! He could be dying, Abdullah!” Jamila yells, which is probably meant in his defense but also makes him feel like he’s just been dunked into a deep fryer. A wave of panicked heat spreads outward from his gut.

“A cooler room might actually be better for him. He’s very warm,” Nancy tells her. She places her hand on his forehead, feeling for his temperature. Her palm, soft and cool, is godly on his hot skin.

“How much have I broken?” Dylan asks. He still can’t seem to bring himself to move a single limb; everything feels unnaturally heavy, bogged down with pain.

“Definitely your leg,” Nancy says gently. “Try not to move it.”

“Shit.”

“We’ve stabilized it, sort of,” she says. Dylan looks down and sees two wooden boards acting as a splint. Doesn’t detract from the glaring realization that his leg is bent at a horribly inhuman angle. Nancy cringes. “We don't have too much to work with.”

It’s like they’ve all time travelled. Unwillingly and purposelessly and painfully. Back to ancient Egypt, when things like modern medical practices and tools didn’t exist, nor did air conditioning or technology. God, his kingdom for a fucking painkiller.

“Anybody got an Advil?” he asks. “Aspirin? Ibuprofen? Generic brand? Anyone?”

“I have some,” says Lily, then carefully adds, “in my bunk.”

“Not much use to us here, now, is it?” Jamila says.

What did the ancients use for pain? Crushed up wheat roots? Boiled sand? Dylan will try just about anything at this point. He shuts his eyes, trying to will the sharp throbbing away.

_Dylan_ , someone whispers.

His eyes fly open. “Who said that?”

“Said what?” asks Nancy.

“My name. Just now.”

Nancy looks at Jamila, then Lily, then Abdullah, who’s already lost interest. It occurs to Dylan that it didn’t much sound like any of them, the voice too deep, too sharp, too knife-like. Unease grows in his stomach like vines, wrapping their way around his lungs until it’s a little difficult to breathe.

“No one said anything,” Nancy says.

“Oh, good,” Lily says, sounding horribly frayed at the edges. “Now he’s hearing things. It’s _the curse_.”

Jamila ignores her. “How hard did you hit your head, Dylan?” she asks him.

He’d love to give her a straight answer, but he’s really not sure. All he knows for certain is that his skull is pulsing as if with its own heartbeat, the pain insufferably strong. 

“I… don’t know?” he offers. He moves his head, tries to lift and tilt it, but Nancy’s hand on his jaw stills him.

“Tell us your name,” Jamila says.

“Dylan. Dylan Carter.”

“Where are we?”

“Some godforsaken pyramid in Egypt.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

His throat is hoarse, craving water, and he can hear it in his raspy voice. “That room—I tried to go in. Lit my lighter. Then—rocks.”

“Sounds about right,” Nancy says.

It’s so bloody _hot_ in this awful pyramid. Was it this hot these last few days? He remembers it being rather cold. He tries to lift an arm to wipe the sweat from his forehead and finds that his shoulder violently protests the movement, groaning.

“Don’t move,” Nancy says, easing his arm back into place. Her attempt to sound calm is faltering just a little.

“Fuck, is it warm,” he rasps. “I can’t—can’t do this.”

Water is being tipped into his mouth again. It does little to get rid of that feeling of hot, chunky sand inside his throat.

“Let’s get him to the tomb,” Jamila suggests. “It’ll be cooler there. Better for him.”

“No,” he moans. He doesn’t want to be in a _tomb_ , it would be like damning himself. Only non-burial grounds for him.

“Shhh,” Nancy says.

A moment later, the ground disappears from beneath him, and it takes him a bit to realize that he’s being lifted, a tarp straightening out underneath him. It jostles him, his leg shifting under the movements, and he hisses as the pain splices through him.

“It’s okay,” Nancy says. Her voice is very close, nearly in his ear. No, it very much _isn’t_ —he feels each and every step as if it were a bump on a road under construction. He also doesn’t know where he’s being taken, but he’s _not happy_ about it, and tries to make his displeasure clear by doing his best to writhe away. It doesn’t take long for a hand to hold him down by the shoulder, and he’s so pathetically weak, sweat hot on his forehead, that the fight drains from him.

“Put me down—Nancy!” he complains, but in vain. She doesn’t listen, and neither does Jamila, who’s manning the other side of the tarp. Of _course_ Abdullah isn’t helping, although he is yelling for Dylan to be put as far out of sight as possible. Take it up with customer service, he wants to shout back, but _his head_ , he’s starting to get a bit woozy.

He ends up going through a tunnel, a dusty ceiling looking down at him. He doesn’t want to see it, doesn’t want to spend another _second_ in this horrible pyramid. He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, he’s been put down. The stone underneath him is unnervingly familiar. _The tomb_. The room is dank, cooler than the main hall, but still not nearly cool enough for his feverish skin. He feels unthinkingly hot, the sweat making his eyes sting.

“Do you want to stay here with him?” Jamila asks Nancy, just barely out of sight around the bend. “He really shouldn’t sleep just yet.”

“I’ll stay.”

Dylan groans. Now that he’s been ordered not to sleep, it’s all he wants to do, his body as worn and battered as it is exhausted. He’s barely slept the last few days anyway, having completely lost his grip on time. His sanity is the next to go, he thinks.

How did this all happen so quickly? One second he was walking harmlessly down a hall and the next he was being pummeled by an avalanche of rocks, and now everything hurts and aches and he feels ridiculous for taking for granted how great he felt earlier, even with the hungry stomach and the dry air and the whole being stuck in a giant pyramid thing. At least then his skull wasn’t leaking blood and none of his bones were broken and he could still walk on his own two feet.

He’s smart enough to know that things just got worse, fast.

“Dylan?” Nancy says, appearing in the doorway. “You’re going to have to stay awake a bit longer.”

“Nancy.” He reaches out to grab her sleeve, holding it captive to make sure she listens. “She’s here.”

“Who’s here?”

He shakes his head. “I dunno. But I heard whispering. In the tomb.”

“What?”

“Nancy, I think I’ve been cursed.” He licks his lips, tasting sweat. It’s salty, and makes him all the thirstier. “She doesn’t want me here. She knows.”

“What does she know?”

“Why I’m here.”

“Why _are_ you here?”

He shakes his head. He can’t tell her, not now. Although what does it even matter at this point? If he’s not going to die of the gaping wound on his head, it’ll be from dehydration after being stuck in an Egyptian temple for days on end. Would it help his dying conscience to get all this off his chest? What happens if he gets better, and he’s left with the consequences of his confessions?

Why did he run down here when the storm started? Why didn’t he just leave?

“I can’t tell you,” he says. He doesn’t know why he cares, given the impending death and everything, but he’s not sure he can handle Nancy’s judgment. He’s not sure why, she’s not exactly occupying the moral high ground herself after all that enlisting his help to snoop around in Lily’s things, but he just _knows_ that she’s suspicious of him, that she thinks she’s better than him. She’s probably right, but still. He grabs for her sleeve again. “Nancy. Just don’t go in there.”

“Where?”

“The _room_ , the room where I almost _died_.”

“We checked it out, Dylan. It’s just a cat tomb. It’s perfectly safe.”

“No!” Dylan says, vehement. “It’s not. This entire pyramid is a lobster trap. We’re not getting out. I know it.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s what she’s telling me, I’m sure of it! We’ve made her mad, and she’s cursed me.”

“Dylan,” she says, gently, like he’s a hysterical child. “It’s okay. Nobody’s been cursed.”

“You’re wrong,” he yells—or at least, the closest he can get to yelling with how dry his mouth feels. “The whole crew knew, the whole team from Kingston knew—and they all left! I want out of this room.” To be sleeping on top of a coffin, _dear god_ , he just hopes he’s not damning himself here. “Put me somewhere else. Anywhere else.”

“Dylan, no one’s actually in this tomb,” Nancy says. “It’s empty.”

“I don’t care!”

“Shh,” Nancy says, hushing him, like he’s a child that needs placating. “Don’t work yourself up.”

It’s not like he’s _trying_. One just tends to be a little on edge after hearing inhuman noises in a prehistoric tomb. All his clothing feels like it’s trying to choke him, too tight on his limbs, too damp with sweat—or is that blood?

“How bad is it, really,” he asks hoarsely.

A pause. Suspicious in length. “It’s okay,” Nancy says. “Everything will heal.”

How much even is there to heal? Dylan feels like one twitch too hefty and he’ll crumble apart at the seams. Not a particularly comfortable sensation.

“Maybe we should talk about something else,” Nancy recommends.

“I want to sleep.”

“You shouldn’t,” she says.

“I want to,” he grumbles, repeating himself. “What even is there to do that’ll keep me awake?”

She doesn’t seem to have an answer. They all ran out of things to do days ago, and nobody wanted to play truth or dare or spin the bottle when Dylan first pitched the ideas on day one. Jokingly, but still. It would’ve made the time pass. And it would’ve kept him away from that damn tomb.

“I’ll see if I can get you something to eat,” she says, peeling his fingers off her sleeve. “I’ll be right back.”

He nods, even though he’d rather she not leave. He can’t exactly beg her to stay; he’s a grown man. He just has to shut his eyes and hope he doesn’t hear anything he doesn’t want to hear.

\--

The short periods of time Nancy or Jamila leave him alone feel like eternities. The darkness closes in on him then, pressing inward like a collapsing tunnel, pushing him, shoving him, torturing him—he’d ask to keep the room lit but he knows they’re running low on lamp oil. Then again, under proper light he’d get a good look at his injuries, and right now, he thinks obliviousness is a gift he better not take for granted. The smell in the room alone is enough to give him idea: sweet, metallic, like meat from the butcher’s. Blood.

How much of it he’s lost, he doesn’t know, but he can tell from the way shifting from left to right results in immediate sharp pain that it probably isn’t little more than a papercut, to say nothing of the broken bones.

When either of them do visit, they do their best to distract him. He doesn’t know how much time has passed since his tumble in the tunnel from hell—the cat tomb, Nancy keeps trying to reassure him—but Jamila’s since allowed him to sleep. She’s shown up occasionally to check his wounds and play doctor, essentially, since he’s ninety-nine percent positive she doesn’t have a degree in anything other than alienology—self-awarded, he’s sure—and Nancy’s been here the rest of the time, trying to engage him in conversation and most likely keep him lucid. Any other occasion, he’d enjoy the company, but right now, the situation is a bit too harried for him.

He keeps hearing things. Voices, whispers. Hisses that sound as if they’re from underground, from within his ear canal, from another dimension. Whenever he rests and lets himself relax for just a second too long, there it comes, like a vicious snap jerking him back to alertness. He knows no one believes him at this point, convinced his injuries have made him delusional, but he knows better. Just because he’s all turned around hasn’t made him mental.

He closes his eyes, his skin burning. It feels like he’s suffocating here in this tomb, like he’ll never breathe fresh air again. He’s bruised up something awful since the incident. His chest alone, even in the darkness, is visibly battered, mottled with purples and greens and near blacks that color his skin like tattoos. God, does his sternum hurt. And his ribs. And his back. Places that didn’t sting at first have since made up their mind to join in on the fun and positively _throb_ in agony.

He thinks about the curse Nancy had translated for him, the one right next to the door. From his spot atop the sarcophagus, he can make out the etchings on the wall. _Agonies of death await you_ , she had told him. It’s not the first time he’s gotten the chills thinking about what’s happened to him, and what happened to the Carter expedition before them, and what those hieroglyphs threatened.

He didn’t think a curse would make that much difference, he had said a few weeks ago. That he’s already so unlucky as it is. What the fuck had he been thinking, egging on a mummy like that?

_Dylan_ , something hisses. And then— 

_Senebty itja._

His eyes snap back open. The shadows taunt him, unmoving.

“Nancy!” he cries out. “ _Nancy!_ ”

For a terrifying moment, he hears nothing but silence, and he’s left to think the worst (that he’s officially entered horror movie world and everyone else is dead and he’s just the one injured loser left behind that everyone knows obviously won’t survive). Then, footsteps come hurrying down the hall and his racing pulse relaxes once more.

Nancy bursts into the room, a candle illuminating her jaw. “Dylan,” she says. “What’s wrong?”

“She’s here,” Dylan croaks. He must sound like a madman, delirious from hunger and pain, but nothing’s ever been clearer. The darkness sharpens everything to an agonizing degree. “She’s here _right now_. In this room.”

“Who?”

“ _Nefertari_.”

“Dylan.”

“No, she _is_.” Nancy has to understand, why doesn’t she understand? They’re all going to fucking _die_ here if they don’t start listening to him. “Nancy. She’s saying things to me—things in an old language, things I can’t understand. She’s cursing me, Nancy, I can feel it.”

Nancy looks concerned, which seems to him that she’s finally taking him seriously, but then she says: “You need rest.”

He groans. “ _No,_ Nancy—I’m not hallucinating.” Terror grips him, a spasm of it. “You can't leave,” he begs, seizing Nancy’s wrist. “Please—you have to stay. I can’t— _stay_.”

“Dylan—”

“Please,” he says again. He gropes down her forearm to her hand, hers warm and dry compared to his own clammy palm. “You have to.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll stay.”

“Someone—tell me someone found a way out.”

Nancy grimaces. “Not yet.”

Not _yet_ , she says. As if there’s still a chance. Every minute that passes, every second, the chance of them being found diminishes a little more. There’s an hourglass here, unseen but present nonetheless, and if Dylan focuses, he can hear it, he can make out the sound of the sand rushing downward, every kernel a lost moment. And if they only have a certain amount of time left, he knows he has the least.

He just can’t shake the feeling that this is the end. Do people know? Can they tell, when it’s all over?

He won’t heal here. There’s too much dirt in the air, too much of it settling in his open wounds. If he wants to have any chance, he has to get out of here.

The whispering gathers around him like bees, buzzing, hissing. He holds onto Nancy’s fingers tightly, tries to will away the voices.

“You’re staying?” he asks, just to check.

“Sure,” Nancy says. “If you want me to.”

“I do,” he says. “Talk to me. About anything. Just say things.” He waves a hand about weakly. “Tell me some more about where you’ve traveled.”

He lets his eyes shut, tries to focus on the sound of Nancy’s breathing, her voice, the feel of her hand in his. She’s a solid, living reminder of what’s real and what isn’t.

She tells him about somewhere and something—Ireland, he thinks, a friend’s wedding gone awry—and he listens halfway, more interested in the soothing sound of her voice than the details. What if they would’ve met there? How would things have been different, he wonders?

Nancy keeps talking for a while, hand cool in his. She stays, just as promised, until Dylan drifts off into a restless sleep.

\--

Things deteriorate alarmingly fast from then on. His wounds don’t have the environment they need to heal, not in these conditions. He spends hours at a time violently shivering, too hot and too cold at the same time. He doesn’t know anymore if it’s night or day—the tomb is always dark, always silent, always covered in the blanket of shadows, as if the world were asleep. Or dead. Which, he supposes, most of the company around here is. And he very well might be.

How long until someone notices they’re out here? And then how long until the rubble is cleared away from the entrance? And then how long until the ambulance makes it? That’s too much time, time he _knows_ he doesn’t have anymore. He’s a tour guide, for god’s sake, which isn’t supposed to be a dangerous profession. It’s for slackers and silver-tongued tellers who like the sound of their own voice. If he wanted to die young he’d go to the army like his brother or whatever else his father would’ve wanted for him.

He’s a _tour guide_ , for fuck’s sake. Things like this don’t happen to tour guides. The worst that’s ever happened to him on the job is a flat tire on the tour bus or losing a part of his group in a giant cathedral.

Jamila comes in at some point to check his injuries. He wants to tell her that there’s been no improvement, and he’d know if there was, but she doesn’t ask, just smooths his hair away from the laceration on his head and pokes and prod at all his sorest spots. He’s still not sure he trusts Jamila to diagnose him. A few short days ago, he was telling Nancy that if it were up to him, he’d ship her off to a mental institution.

The voices haven’t gone away. By now he’s starting to wonder if he really has begun hallucinating. The fluctuating temperature—his fever, no doubt—is driving him equally mad. His body can’t decide what it wants, caught between shivers and sweat. The fact that each time he so much as shifts around he feels the crusty pull of his own wounds, uncomfortable and itchy and sharply painful, makes it clear to him that they’re not closing up and healing.

At some point, they start to burn. He knows that can’t be a good sign.

Jamila’s concern, written all over her face as she examines his head, isn’t particularly reassuring either. She doesn’t say a word to him, expression hard, and quickly hustles out of the room. She doesn’t go far, though, as Dylan can still hear her in the tunnel talking to Nancy.

“—gotten infected,” Jamila’s saying, voice carefully hushed. “That’s something we wanted to avoid.”

“His head?” Nancy’s voice responds.

“Yes.

“His fever’s getting worse,” she whispers. “If we don’t get him help soon, his wounds will get worse. And all this dust around here isn’t helping matters.”

“What can we do for him?” Nancy asks.

There’s a long silence. Then: “Make him comfortable,” Jamila offers.

That doesn’t sound like particular reassuring news. He swallows on a dry mouth, realizing that was a conversation he definitely wasn’t meant to overhear.

Receding footsteps sound out in the tunnel. He feels, suddenly, very much like shouting. Screaming that this isn’t fair. What the fuck did he do to deserve this. Why is any of this happening in the first place. Why, of all places, did he have to suffer the worst injuries of his life when trapped in a giant ancient pyramid.

A cool hand wraps around his, gentle. Dylan jolts in surprise until he realizes who it is: Nancy.

“How are you feeling?” Nancy asks, voice stooped low as to not disturb. Her thumb brushes back and forth over his wrist. “Any better?”

“You can’t trust her,” Dylan says instantly. “Jamila—something’s up with her.”

“With Jamila?”

“ _Yes_.” Even through the haze, the feverish fog, he still remembers watching her creep around the tomb, and that _bag_ of hers— “You have to check her bag. There’s—there’s got to be a hidden compartment in there.”

“What?”

“One minute it’s empty and the next—she’s hiding something,” he tells her.

“You’re sure?”

He makes a noise, frustrated. “I don’t exactly have anything to gain by lying at this point,” he says, which is true. Whose last wish is to stir up pointless drama? He thinks of the throb in his head, Jamila’s low voice telling Nancy _it’s infected _, and wonders if his brain is affected by all this, if he really is completely hallucinating. He certainly feels insane with heat, borderline delusional.__

__“Okay,” Nancy relents. “I’ll check it out.”_ _

__“Wait,” Dylan says before she can go. “What did she mean?”_ _

__“What did who mean?”_ _

__“Jamila. About me.” He can’t quite convince his mouth to form the words. “I heard something. She thinks I won’t—” he shakes his head. “What’s going on, Nancy?”_ _

__She looks worried, that much is certain. Her expression is so much like Jamila’s, pinched with badly hidden uneasiness, that it’s almost uncanny. “That’s—” Her pause is brimming with the making of an in-progress lie. Dylan can’t figure out if he even wants the truth anyway. “She didn’t mean anything like that.”_ _

__“What _did_ she mean?”_ _

__There’s no good excuse, and Dylan knows it. _All_ of them probably know what’s happening to him._ _

__“We’re keeping an eye on you,” Nancy says. It must be the best she could come up with, and it does little to quell his fears. “Just try to relax.”_ _

__\--_ _

__The sleep that overtakes him after that conversation is nothing but fitful, born of exhaustion rather than tranquility. The dreams are little better: his mother is there, in the kitchen of his childhood home, preparing pie Dylan can’t quite smell. His brother is there too, but younger, and he’s cutting fruits up for the pie. They talk to him like nothing’s happened, like they all still get along, like he’s a boy again, happy and loud. It would be wonderful dream under different circumstances; as it stands, it feels worryingly like a memory he’s meant to live in only one last time._ _

__But then he wakes up, and he’s back in the tomb, back in Egypt, his vision hot and hazy._ _

__He knows there’s no recovering from this. He’s lost his chance. Maybe if the emergency crews could’ve been here days ago, but not anymore. If he wasn’t so fucking dizzy, so faint with blood loss, he might be putting up more of a fight right now._ _

__The regrets are starting to pile in. Dylan was hoping to not have to go through this part, but here it is, in all its awful pre-death glory. Why didn’t he try harder with his father? Why did he move away from home so fast? Why did he hop from job to job so much, from city to city, from home to home?_ _

__Someone calling his name pulls him from his thoughts, sluggishly, as if awakening from sleep. The pyramid swims into view. The tomb. Soft blond hair tickling his jaw. Nancy._ _

__“Feeling any better?” she asks._ _

__He shakes his head._ _

__“Dylan,” says Nancy. “If one of us gets a signal here, who should we reach out to about you?”_ _

__A dry chuckle escapes him, embarrassment washing over him. He has no one on that list, no one to bear the responsibility of being his emergency contact, no one would arrange a funeral on his behalf._ _

__It’s possible that he’s going about this whole _life_ business all wrong. Although if he dies in under twenty-four hours, this revelation may have come a tad too late._ _

__“No one,” he croaks._ _

__“No one?” Nancy repeats. “What about your family?”_ _

__“Nobody would pick up,” he says, then realizes it sounds like he’s begging for pity when he sees it flare up in Nancy’s eyes. He manages a smile to try to convince her otherwise. “Don’t feel too sorry, Nancy, just the burden of the business.”_ _

__“Burden of the business?”_ _

__“Too much travel. Could never stay one place too long.” He’s still not sure where that comes from—a need to prove himself, perhaps. A fear of intimacy. Which might just be where his veneer of charm originates from, if he really thinks about it._ _

__Christ, is his head pounding._ _

__“Dylan.”_ _

__“No—Nancy, I know,” he says. He reaches for her hand, pitching his own out until it collides with her wrist. He knows he’s wet with sweat, horribly clammy, but she doesn’t pull away when he grabs her palm. “This could be it.”_ _

__“Dylan—” she says again._ _

__“You’re too good,” he rasps. He thought she was just like him, a fellow scoundrel, just another delinquent, someone who thieved around in other people’s bunks, but he was so wrong. She’s good and graceful and more than Dylan ever deserves. “You should know—you should know everything.”_ _

__“About what?”_ _

__“ _Me_ ,” he says. He’s so thirsty—how long has it been since he’s drunken water? He licks his lips, tries to wet them, but they’re as dry and chapped as the rest of his mouth. “You have to understand. I wasn’t always like this. Things got so hard—I thought this was the only way.”_ _

__Nancy leans closer, slides her other and tightly around his, squeezing as if to keep him awake and focused. “Dylan, what are you talking about?”_ _

__“I’m bad,” he says, because that about sums it up. “I thought I could get away with it.”_ _

__“With _what_?”_ _

__“The black market.”_ _

__“Dylan, what are you talking about?”_ _

__“It’s not enough.” Her face is pulled together with concern and confusion alike. She isn’t understanding. Why isn’t she understanding? Dylan swallows on his achingly dry mouth and keeps talking. “The tours—they’re not enough anymore. I needed money. Thought this would work.”_ _

__“And did it?”_ _

__He shakes his head. “‘Course not. He didn’t trust me.”_ _

__“Who didn’t trust you? Dylan?”_ _

__He keeps shaking. He doesn’t want to talk about this anymore, not when he’s already revealed himself to be a total piece of garbage._ _

__“Why are you telling me this?”_ _

__“Someone should know before I—” He stops, swallows. His throat aches. “And I’d rather it be you than anyone else.”_ _

__He was _disgustingly_ wrong; this curse has made his bad luck look like child’s play. Unluckiness would be Nancy rejecting him when he asks her out, but dying before he ever has the chance? This is in a league of its own._ _

__“Nancy,” he starts. He has to ask. He has to know for sure. Even now, in his feverish haze, it’s all he think of. “If it didn’t—if we hadn’t—if we had first met somewhere else. Would I—could things have been different?”_ _

__“Different?” Nancy repeats._ _

__He nods, needs her to understand, wants to know at least this._ _

__“For you and me,” he says._ _

__“Oh.”_ _

__He lets himself laugh at the sheer ludicrousness of the situation, of the cards he’s been dealt. Maybe he wasn’t the best man, the most deserving, but this—the karma hammer must’ve had it out for him. If only he would’ve met Nancy under better circumstances. She could’ve been in one of his tours. She could’ve eaten at the same restaurant as him. She could’ve sat next to him on an airplane. She could’ve seen a better version of him, one that wasn’t out for the black market just because he was broke and desperate._ _

__“You and me, seeing the world together,” he says. He swallows again and again, but it isn’t helping the coarseness of his voice. “Do you remember?”_ _

__“I do,” she says._ _

__“We could’ve done it. Far away from this old place. Rome, Vancouver, Melbourne…”_ _

__“Dylan,” Nancy says gently, finding his wrist._ _

__“…we could’ve gone everywhere. Lived in airports. Gone backpacking.”_ _

__“In the next life, perhaps,” he says. “This one—too unlucky.”_ _

__A warm breath fans out gently over his temple. It’s Nancy, her hand smoothing out over his forehead, a light touch that he almost doesn’t register, one that could even be a fever dream. Faintly, he can smell her scent. He doesn’t want this to be the end—and then, almost dream-like in its soft innocence, Nancy’s lips press against his, brief but firm._ _

__It’s over in a moment, one that’s much too short. It isn’t a proper kiss, nothing to be proud of, but Dylan feels it tingle against his mouth all the same._ _

__His eyelids have never been heavier. He just wants to shut them. Just for a minute._ _

__“Dylan, it’s going to be okay,” he hears Nancy say, but it sounds almost distant, far-off, like a chiming bell from a tower miles away. “Dylan.”_ _

__Not that long now, he thinks, and lets his eyes drift. They wander closed as if spellbound by the prospect of sleep, of rest, of perhaps even more than that, and Dylan is helpless to stop them._ _

__\--_ _

__Everything is very, very white._ _

__Absolutely _everything_ , and it’s so bright that it hurts. Is this—no, surely he never would’ve made it in here. He bought his ticket to the downstairs world ages ago. Also, would everything still hurt so fucking much in heaven? That doesn’t seem very fair._ _

__Then he notices the beeping. It’s faint, but it’s also _annoying_. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. It sounds like a machine. Like—_ _

__“Dylan?”_ _

__The last remnants of his mind’s fogginess is washed from his mind at that familiar voice. He blinks, blinks harder, and realizes he’s staring at a gray tiled ceiling. And a heap of crisp white sheets. And there’s a heart monitor wheeled up close next to him. And Nancy’s sitting in a chair by the bed he’s on._ _

__Wait, _Nancy_?_ _

__“You’re awake,” says the Nancy-mirage, because no way is she real. At least, he’s sure of that up until she gets to her feet and hastens to the bed and he gets a better look at her: bags under sleepless eyes, uncombed hair, ashen complexion. Surely his imagination would do better than to give him such a sloppy version of Nancy, for god’s sake._ _

__“You’re here,” he replies, and good lord, his voice sounds like his throat has been through the wood chipper. “Nancy,” he says, reverent, and reaches for her._ _

__What happened last? He remembers the pyramid—the throb in his head, the sting in his wounds, Nancy’s hand in his—what happened then? How much time has passed? Where the hell _are_ they?_ _

__“Don’t move yet,” she says instantly, seizing his arm. “I’ll get the nurse.”_ _

__“I’m not dead, am I?”_ _

__“No,” she says. “But it was a close call.”_ _

__“Really?”_ _

__“Really. The paramedics said a few more hours and—” She clears her throat. Grabs his hand. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”_ _

__“You and me both.” He looks around more carefully, at the dusty TV in the corner, at the half-eaten trays of food by Nancy’s chair. Definitely a hospital. “Was I out for long?”_ _

__“Four days,” Nancy says. She sounds a little choked._ _

___Four days._ He reaches up to feel his face for stubble accumulation, realizing then that a heavy cast is secured over his arm. Ah, the wonders of modern medical care. It’s definitely doing a better job than the old tarps and t-shirts he was wrapped up with in the pyramid. He turns to Nancy again._ _

__“And you,” Dylan says. “You’ve been here long?”_ _

__“Here and there,” she says. “I wanted to make sure you were waking up.”_ _

__“Were they not sure I would?” he asks. It’s a bit of an odd feeling, knowing he’s defeated death when all he’s been doing is sleeping his life away. He’s not sure what the appropriate reaction is. He scrubs a hand over his face, the skin horribly dry, with the arm that isn’t covered in plaster. “You know what? Don’t answer that. I don’t need to know. What happened to everyone else?”_ _

__“Well, Lily’s a few rooms down the hall.”_ _

__“ _What?_ ”_ _

__“Another cave-in. Those pyramids are less safe than they look.”_ _

__“I’m living proof,” Dylan mutters in agreement. “And space girl?” He would’ve used her name, except he can’t remember it right now for the life of him. Hopefully all that’s a temporary side effect of the gnarly skull bashing and everything. “Or Abdullah?”_ _

__“Jamila’s fine. Turns out, she’s not quite as crazy as anyone thought.”_ _

__“Really?”_ _

__“Her whole alien shtick was for show so she wouldn’t be a threat to Abdullah. And she was right to be cautious of him, considering that he ended up being behind all this.”_ _

__“Wait— _what?_ ”_ _

__Nancy sighs. “He orchestrated the whole _curse_. It’s a long story.”_ _

__“What? Why?!”_ _

__“The black market, apparently. Turns out he’s been committing crimes against Egypt for a long time.”_ _

__Oh, _that_. There’s that reminder like ice water down his back that pulls him back to reality. The very reason he thought he was being punished by an ancient curse. Just in case he forgot how horribly out of Nancy’s league he is. Nancy’s good-hearted and fights for what’s right and wants to improve the world, and he—well, he tries to smuggle his way into the black market and nearly winds up dying. The universe might be trying to tell him something._ _

__Nancy has to have figured all that out by now. And still—she’s still here. She sat at his bedside regardless. Clearly she doesn’t find him so reprehensible that she can’t be in the same room as him, so that’s something._ _

__Once he’s out of here, he really ought to take a good hard look at himself. Try to do better. Redo the person he’s become. There’s a fifty-fifty chance that once his bones have healed and all this morphine has worn off that he’ll change his mind, but he wants to try._ _

__He closes his eyes,_ _

__“Nancy—earlier. Before. In the pyramid.” He clears his throat. He’s not even entirely sure it happened anymore, so best not presume it’s fact. He was pretty delirious at the end there. “Did you kiss me?”_ _

__“Oh.” She ducks her head, but Dylan still catches her reddened cheeks before they’re out of view. Somewhere miles underneath the the stiff casts locking him into stillness, a familiar part of himself thrills to life. “You don’t remember?”_ _

__“I think I do. But, well. It’d be an embarrassing thing to be wrong about, wouldn’t you agree?”_ _

__“Yeah,” she says slowly. A long, borderline uncomfortable pause follows. “I guess it would be.”_ _

__“Nancy,” he says gently. “You don’t have to—what I mean is, if you’re not…”_ _

__He fades off, not sure how to phrase this so he at least isn't actively participating in his own rejection, even if he’s pretty sure it’s coming. _Gloriously unlucky_ , Dylan reminds himself. _Get ready.__ _

__“Dylan,” Nancy says, and suddenly she’s standing, close to the bed, and wrapping her hands around his. “You have no idea how scared I was down there when I thought you were dying.”_ _

__“Hey, me too,” he says, doing his best to be funny, but coming off a little self-deprecatory when he hears the words come out of his mouth. He looks at her hands. They’re very soft. Distractingly so. “What are the chances.”_ _

__“Just thinking about it—I’m so glad you’re all right.”_ _

__“Can’t get rid of me that easily.”_ _

__“The doctors said—it was only a matter of hours, Dylan,” she says, sounding a bit frayed around the edges, almost angry. Dylan’s not sure at whom. “You were dehydrated and your fever was way too high, to say nothing of all the broken bones.”_ _

__Is this supposed to be some sort of pep talk? If so, it’s not exactly motivational. She might want to work on her bedside manner just a tad._ _

__“Are you… are you trying to make me feel better?” he asks, confused._ _

__“What I’m trying to say is that I really didn’t think I’d be so—affected. Seeing you there, dying.”_ _

__“Thanks very much,” he says, dryly at best._ _

__She ignores him. “Especially after everything you’d done—really, I don’t normally—not with people who are so… fast and loose with their ethics,” Nancy says, her cringe audible as she speaks. She stops, takes in a breath, quiets a bit. “But you were… different.”_ _

__If things had been different, Dylan had asked her back in the tomb, the one thing he remembers with total clarity. Maybe they always had been, and he just hadn’t noticed._ _

__She squeezes Dylan’s weak hand, tightening her grip. He lets himself look at her, really _look_ at her, and marvels at her beauty, even here under the harsh fluorescents, even now after days of evident insomnia and stress. None of this quite feels real, he has to admit. He closes his eyes, then opens them back up. Rinse and repeat. The world doesn’t fade out, or dissolve, or crinkle away into the darkness of the tomb. It stays resolute, the hand holding his a solid encouragement of its realism, its existence._ _

__Fuck, is he glad to be out of that pyramid._ _

__“That last kiss,” Dylan brings up, fighting for casual indifference. It would even sound effortlessly sexy if his throat wasn’t so fucking hoarse, every word a rough croak. If that won’t get any better, they’ll have to throw him in the lake with the other frogs. “I don’t really remember it. Do you, well. Think we can recreate it?”_ _

__The color on Nancy’s cheeks is so bright, it can’t be missed. Bless these hospital fluroescents, even if they make his eyes hurt._ _

__“Dylan,” she begins, sounding more sheepish than Dylan has ever heard her. “I, well—”_ _

__“I know, I know. I’m no longer dying, so perhaps the offer doesn’t stand anymore.” He holds her gaze, forces himself to withhold the urge to make a joke. “That was most definitely a goodbye kiss, and another—well, it wouldn’t be a goodbye kiss. At least, I wouldn’t want it to be.”_ _

__He waits, half-terrified of her response. He probably shouldn’t go about driving up his anxiety now that he’s sitting in a hospital bed, especially since Nancy can now hear just how fast his heartbeat is getting with the machine _beep, beep, beep_ ing in the corner. He isn’t the type to quiver about when asking out a woman, but things might’ve changed after the near-death experience and all that. Perhaps this’ll wear off in a few days, but right now, it feels like things have changed._ _

__Nancy still isn’t saying a word, and Dylan’s patience is a bit thin considering his current circumstances. If he hadn’t waited so long to make his move earlier, after all, he might’ve succeeded long before any of them had ended up trapped in the pyramid; he has no desire to wait even longer and see if good things will just magically be gifted to him with no effort required whatsoever._ _

__“Nancy, listen. It’s all right if you don’t feel that way,” he says, just in case she might—horror upon horrors—be considering acquiescing out of pity or some misplaced guilt at the fact that he might’ve kicked the bucket. “Although if you don’t, I must say, that kiss definitely sent the wrong signals.”_ _

__Nancy ducks her head, but Dylan can still see her smile, not fully hidden from him. “Dylan, it’s not that I… didn’t mean what I did,” she says. “But I don’t see how—I’m just not sure how it would work.”_ _

__“I know I’m not at my best-looking right now—” —he doesn’t even want to know what he looks like, covered in bruises and plaster and dust—oh god, he can only hope that they’ve washed all that god awful tomb dust off of him by now— “—but I’m a good guy. Or at least.” He stops, sighs. “I’d like to see if I _could_ be.”_ _

__Nancy’s answering expression is curious, unreadable. He wishes desperately he could read her mind for just a few bearable seconds—perhaps more, if only because it’s starting to kill him that he doesn’t know what she thinks of him, where he stands with her. In the foggy recesses of his mind, he thinks he recalls telling her that he was involved in all that black market training, some ridiculous attempt at purging himself of his sinful secrets before he met the big man upstairs. What kind of man does she believe him to be after hearing something like that?_ _

__“Would you be interested in helping me with that?” he asks._ _

__“Well, of course,” she says._ _

__Emboldened, Dylan allows the barest hint of a smile to cross his lips. “So, back to that kiss. Is that something you’d be interesting in helping me with?”_ _

__Her eyes flick upwards, nearly a roll, but then she tips forward just enough to make her intentions clear. Dylan knows he must look a mess, horribly bruised and unshaven, but he doesn’t want to wait with this until he’s back to his stellar old self; he wants this now, selfishly, desperately. Her lips reach his, the kiss chaste but still enough to send his stomach into gymnastic training. He slides a hand to the back of her neck to keep her close a few precious seconds longer, the sensation making him feel nearly drunk._ _

__Unless that’s the drugs? It could be the drugs._ _

__“When all this is done,” he says against her lips, suddenly acutely aware that all the secrets he had been guarding from her are free now, and still, she’s here. He hadn’t even realized just how tightly dread at such a prospect had welled up in his chest until he’s now been fed the relief. “How about we arrange to travel somewhere at the same time?”_ _

__“I think we could do that.”_ _

__“It’ll probably be a while until I’m working again, much less traveling,” Dylan says, gesturing helplessly at his stiff casts. “But I’ll consider that something to look forward to. But for now—”_ _

__He raises an eyebrow, delighted that the resulting sting in his forehead isn’t mind-crushingly painful, just a small twinge. Sign that he’s on the mend, he supposes. He reaches for Nancy, settling his hands on her cheeks, and draws her back in. Even with overgrown Sasquatch facial hair, unnaturally large facial bruises, and the breath of a buffalo on a hot and sweaty day, he knows that at least he has one unfailing tool at his disposal that no amount of curses can take from him: the fact that he’s a damn good kisser. He shows off as much as Nancy helps close the distance between them._ _

__“Oops!” says someone suddenly from the door. “Didn’t mean to disturb.”_ _

__It’s Jamila. She glances at their proximity, at the unmistakable message being conveyed._ _

__“Good to see you awake,” she says to Dylan. “I’ll… come back later.”_ _

__Her resulting knowing smile before she hurries away gives Dylan pause._ _

__“Okay, I’m going to need an explanation,” he says, eyebrows furrowing. “Now, is she actually batty, or am I missing something?”_ _

__“Oh. That’s all part of that longer story I mentioned,” Nancy says._ _

__Dylan stretches—as much as his casts allow, anyway, which he can’t even bring himself to be annoyed by because _modern medicine_ , what a gift—and grins. He grabs her hand and leans back. “I’ve got time.”_ _

**Author's Note:**

> "senebty itja" came from reading a few articles on ancient egyptian words and vocab and translates to "farewell thief." was dylan really hearing voices??? IDK GAME, GIVE US SOME ANSWERS (chances are he was really just dehydrated/concussed but they STILL SHOULD HAVE TOLD US IN THE END)


End file.
